Alphabet Positions, EJOTY and Opposite Letters

Positions in the alphabet

Every letter-series question becomes a number-series question once the letters are converted into their positions.

• From the left: A = 1, B = 2, up to Z = 26.
• From the right: position from the right = 27 minus the position from the left.

Letter	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M
From left	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
From right	26	25	24	23	22	21	20	19	18	17	16	15	14

Letter	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
From left	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26
From right	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1

The EJOTY shortcut

Memorise five anchors: E = 5, J = 10, O = 15, T = 20, Y = 25. Any letter can then be placed by counting a step or two from the nearest anchor, without running through the alphabet from A.

Opposite letters

Two letters are opposite when their positions add up to 27.

The pairs are A–Z, B–Y, C–X, D–W, E–V, F–U, G–T, H–S, I–R, J–Q, K–P, L–O and M–N.

A memory aid runs through the words BY, DeW, FUn, HS and LOve, which cover five of the pairs.

Wrap-around

After Z the alphabet starts again at A. If a calculated position goes above 26, subtract 26. If it falls below 1, add 26.

Position arithmetic

• The kth letter to the right of the mth letter from the left is the (m + k)th letter from the left.
• The kth letter to the left of the mth letter from the left is the (m − k)th letter from the left.
• The nth letter from the right is the (27 − n)th letter from the left.