Puzzles like those on "Wheel of Fortune" are based on a communication principle known as information entropy.

Information entropy means, in a nutshell, that consonants carry more information than vowels.

The puzzles here aim to exemplify how the principle works.

In the American television quiz show "Wheel of Fortune," a contestant must guess a consonant missing from the words in a puzzle phrase for each spin of the wheel. But the contestant must pay $250 dollars from an accumulated amount of money to see what vowels are in the puzzle. The rules of the game are actually based on a well-known principle in linguistics and information theory that can be defined—in reference to the game itself—as the principle that it is easier to figure out what a word is if given only its consonants, but almost impossible to do so if given just its vowels.

Take, for example, the following word missing the vowels. What word is it if you are told that it refers to a sport?

It is fairly easy to figure out that the word is TENNIS. Now, look at the following word, which is missing the........

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