Lorem Ipsum
It turns out not to be random Latin gibberish after all. Well, not all of it anyway.
“Lorem ipsum” is the name given to placeholder text used in the printing and typesetting industry. It’s often used in the design and layout of printed materials, websites, and various other visual mediums to demonstrate the visual form of a document or presentation without the distraction of meaningful content.
Here is some sample Lorem ipsum text:
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.”
Versions of the Lorem ipsum text have been used in typesetting at least since the 1960s, when it was popularised by ads for Letraset transfer sheets (old enough to remember those?); and Lorem ipsum was introduced to the digital world in the mid-1980s, when Aldus employed it in graphic and word-processing templates for its desktop publishing program PageMaker.
Until not so long ago it was thought to be random Latin gibberish thrown together by someone in the 1500s as a way to mock-up text.
But now we know that it both means something (sort of) … and comes from somewhere.
The first two words themselves are a truncation of dolorem ipsum (“pain itself”). The subsequent words are a corrupted version of De finibus bonorum et malorum, a 1st-century BCE text by the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, with words altered, added and removed to make it nonsensical and improper Latin.
The discovery of the text’s origin is attributed to Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar at Hampden–Sydney College. McClintock connected Lorem ipsum to Cicero’s writing sometime before 1982 while searching for instances of the Latin word consectetur, which was rarely used in classical literature. McClintock first published his discovery in a 1994 letter to the editor of Before & After magazine, contesting the editor’s claim that Lorem ipsum held no meaning.
The passage in a 1914 edition from the Loeb Classical Library that McClintock found reads as follows: “Neque porro quisquam est qui do- [page break] lorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit”.
The obvious conclusion is that whoever first created the sequence was sitting in front of this 1914 translated version of De Finibus, and took the text from the page beginning “lorem ipsum”. Meaning that, contrary to a long held belief, Lorem ipsum was not born in the world of printing in the 16th century, but rather appeared at the earliest after 1914 – and potentially not until the 1960s when some marketing executive at Letraset tasked with generating placeholder text for an ad reached for his or her 1914 Loeb facing translation of De Finibus, and then, quoting Jack Shephard in his fine article on this subject “settled down to the hard, thankless task of absolutely butchering it”.
Not into Latin? Never mind. Nowadays, there’s no shortage of Lorem Ipsum alternatives, including Nietzsche Ipsum, Delorean Ipsum, Pirate Ipsum, Cheese Ipsum, Cat Ipsum and DJ Khaled Ipsum. Check out some samples below, and fill those blank pages with gibberish of your choosing.
Story Idea: David Astle
Alternative Lorem Ipsum Samples
Nietzsche Ipsum
One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star; thus the abyss gazes also, quietly amused, as values dissolve and are reforged in the furnace of will. Morality trembles, truth flickers, and the overman strides not toward comfort, but toward becoming.
DeLorean Ipsum
Great Scott, the flux capacitor is humming as we punch it to 88 miles per hour, leaving twin trails of fire across the parking lot of history; the timeline bends, the past resists, and the future—well, the future is exactly where we’re going.
Pirate Ipsum
Avast, ye scurvy dog, hoist the mainsail and mind the kraken as we chart a course through treacherous waters, pockets jinglin’ with plunder and hearts set on rum, glory, and the next ill-gotten horizon.
Cheese Ipsum
A velvety brie melts languidly beside a sharp cheddar bite, while blue veins whisper of caves and time; crumble, slice, or spread—each wheel a quiet masterpiece of milk, patience, and indulgence.
Cat Ipsum
I fits, I sits, judging you silently from atop the warm laptop while plotting midnight zoomies; the curtain is mine, the box is mine, everything is mine—now feed me and pretend it was your idea.
DJ Khaled Ipsum
Another one—bless up, we the best, major key alert—stay focused, secure the bag, and don’t ever play yourself, because the journey is a celebration and the wins? They just keep coming.
REMORANDOM Chapter
