The Mysterious Origins of the Placeholder Text ‘Lorem Ipsum’

Emily Zhang of Rabbit Hole explored the history of Lorem Ipsum, specifically noting how a nonsensical pseudo-Latin phrase became a standard placeholder of print and digital texts across many industries.

What Lorem ipsum actually is is a far stranger series of decisions that lived beyond anyone's expectations to become the most famous nonsense text in the world. And, an unsolved mystery.

Zhang visited the foremost expert of Lorem Ipsum, Professor Richard McClintock of Hampden-Sydney College, in Virginia. McClintock he explained how he came across this term in a magazine as a student, how he discovered that this text wasn't really Latin but rather a jumbled variation of text from the first book of De finibus bonorum et malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil") by Marcus Tullius Cicero, and how he sought to set it right.

Iactually never set out to become the world expert on this subject. I just wanted things to be right. And this is all kind of happened around me

McClintock further explained that Lorem Ipsum as placeholder text wasn't really around before the 20th century, despite the narrative of the phrase originating in the 16th century.

There was no way to do dummy text in those days because it was all lead type. A page of type would probably take the better part of half an hour to set. It would be a waste of time to set up dummy text,

via Tom Scott

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The post The Mysterious Origins of the Placeholder Text Lorem Ipsum' was originally published on Laughing Squid.