Blog 11

What is Lorem Ipsum?

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum 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 popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Why do we use it?

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum 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 Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

Where does it come from?

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum 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 a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum 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 Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..", comes from a line in section 1.10.32.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used 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 of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn't anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum 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, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.

 

Cras nunc turpis, suscipit ut nisl in, rutrum scelerisque neque. Praesent in egestas tellus. Phasellus viverra imperdiet urna sed tempor. Proin tincidunt accumsan erat. Ut molestie, diam vel consequat efficitur, nisl nisl gravida turpis, in dictum neque lacus facilisis nunc. Pellentesque odio ipsum, ullamcorper ut purus consectetur, pulvinar laoreet nunc. Duis eget arcu magna. Praesent ac dui dignissim diam tincidunt imperdiet euismod maximus tellus.
 

Etiam et finibus elit. Duis tempor, dolor ac posuere laoreet, neque ligula hendrerit elit, eu finibus elit dui id magna. Nulla ligula lacus, imperdiet in suscipit a, lacinia viverra neque. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Sed suscipit risus sit amet ex hendrerit, id aliquam velit ultricies. Aenean ultricies nisl in malesuada venenatis. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Etiam dolor nulla, feugiat nec sem ut, pharetra volutpat erat. Vestibulum vehicula dui id velit ullamcorper, id scelerisque mi tincidunt. Phasellus urna ex, porttitor a ex id, iaculis ultricies felis. Aliquam molestie elit at massa mattis, ullamcorper commodo arcu luctus. Integer sed aliquet magna. Mauris viverra pulvinar orci, sed consequat elit aliquam a. Ut non enim id mi rhoncus tempus. Fusce nec odio vitae felis fermentum porttitor.
 

Suspendisse eget cursus felis. Duis venenatis et odio a cursus. Mauris placerat quis magna quis malesuada. Curabitur in pulvinar libero. Vestibulum imperdiet tempus nibh, ac lobortis ligula bibendum at. Nam laoreet viverra augue vitae placerat. Pellentesque ac metus vestibulum, malesuada orci quis, pellentesque risus. Fusce nec quam laoreet, congue sapien ac, suscipit erat. Mauris at porta mauris. Cras ornare, dui vel finibus tincidunt, turpis nisi lacinia tellus, sit amet scelerisque purus est eget leo. Vestibulum nec consequat ante. Phasellus sagittis risus efficitur efficitur tempor. Suspendisse potenti. Nam feugiat, orci id semper volutpat, tortor elit suscipit mauris, ut blandit ex felis ut justo.
 

Sed posuere ex turpis, semper dictum odio maximus non. Curabitur aliquet tellus eu venenatis accumsan. Nunc sit amet mauris ut quam finibus tempus. Nulla facilisi. Donec lobortis consequat orci mattis pellentesque. Phasellus leo mauris, auctor sit amet augue elementum, malesuada iaculis dolor. Maecenas vitae mi sit amet elit gravida ultrices. Nulla facilisi. Nam sed elit id est hendrerit rhoncus sit amet sit amet nulla. Curabitur lobortis, nisi a blandit pellentesque, dolor risus fermentum ligula, et egestas ligula ex quis quam. Aliquam erat volutpat. Integer non tristique leo, non cursus ex. Proin vitae gravida augue. Donec erat est, suscipit vitae lacus quis, volutpat aliquet augue. Ut egestas dignissim scelerisque.