TypeTalk: The Quick Brown Fox
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TypeTalk is a regular blog on typography. Post your questions and comments by clicking on the Comments icon above. If Ilene answers your question in the blog, you’ll receive one Official Creativepro.com T-Shirt!
Q. Why is the sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” seen so often in type samples?
A. It’s a pangram, which is an oftentimes nonsensical sentence that contains at least one instance of all the letters in the English alphabet. It first made an appearance with the invention of the typewriter in the 1870s. It was also used in typing and stenography books as a practice sentence, as well as in situations that required learning an action for each letter, including sign language, Braille, and signaling.
Today, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” appears in type specimens for print, the Web, and font managers so you can see all of the typeface’s characters in a more realistic setting (as opposed to a to z).
Type designers and developers also use “The quick brown fox…” (and other pangrams) when working on a new design so they can see the color, texture, and interaction of all the characters.
Although “The quick brown fox…” is the most common pangram, here are seven others:
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
The five boxing wizards jump quickly.
How quickly daft jumping zebras vex.
Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
How razorback jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts.
Sixty zippers were quickly picked from the woven jute bag.
Several different pangrams set in DIN Next Pro, ITC Deelirious, Bernard Condensed, ITC Tyfa Pro, ITC Kloegirl New York, and ITC Roswell Four.
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I believe the correct pangram is “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy white dog” to get all the letters of the alphabet. Of course, white seems to be a dirty word nowadays.
‘You say, Although “The quick brown fox…” is the most common pangram.. ‘ Does that mean you counted, or that you have the impression … ?
I learned “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy yellow dog”
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frank s
Lightning moxy zapped quarts of backjaw vim.
Made this up on the fly.
Hawai`i Bill
To commenter no. 3: I’m afraid the author is correct and you are wrong: your sentence does not contain the letter “s” and the letters in the word “white” all appear elsewhere in the sentence.
I believe the correct pangram is “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy white dog” to get all the letters of the alphabet. Of course, white seems to be a dirty word nowadays. sesli sohbet sesli chat