Lorem Ipsum is a dummy text

What is Lorem Ipsum?

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummying text of the printing and typesetting industry. It has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s. When an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popular in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing its passages. And more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of it.

Why do we use Lorem Ipsum?

It is a long-establishing fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page. When looking at its layout. The point of using it is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters. As opposed to using ‘Content here, content here, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use it. As their default model text and a search for ‘its will uncover many websites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humor and the like).

Where does it come from?

Contrary to popular belief, it is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock. A Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. Looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur. From its passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. It comes from sections. 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero. Written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of it, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..”, comes from a line in section 1.10.32.

The standard chunk of its use since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

Where can I get some?

There are many variations of passages on it available. But the majority have suffered alteration in some form by injected humor. Or randomized words that don’t look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of it. You need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of the text. All its generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary. Making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words. And combined with a handful of model sentence structures. To generate it which looks reasonable. The generate it is therefore always free from repetition, injected humor, or non-characteristic words, etc.