"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is a pangram (a phrase that contains all of the letters of the English alphabet). It has been used to test typewriters and computer keyboards, and in other applications involving all of the letters in the English alphabet. Due to its shortness and coherence, it has become widely known and is often used in visual arts.
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History
As the use of typewriters grew in the late 19th century, the phrase began appearing in typing and stenography lesson books as a practice sentence. Early examples of publications which utilized the phrase include Illustrative Shorthand by Linda Bronson (1888),[1] How to Become Expert in Typewriting: A Complete Instructor Designed Especially for the Remington Typewriter (1890), and Typewriting Instructor and Stenographer's Hand-book (1892).
By the turn of the 20th century, the phrase had become widely known. In the January 10, 1903 issue of Pitman's Phonetic Journal, it is referred to as "the well known memorized typing line embracing all the letters of the alphabet".[2] Robert Baden-Powell's book Scouting for Boys (1908) uses the phrase as a practice sentence for signalling.[3]
Variations
The standard version of the pangram has 35 letters which include all 26 of the letters of the English alphabet at least once. The letters t, h, u and r are used twice, e three times and o four times.
A few variations of this pangram exist, including "A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", which is two letters shorter, and "The quick fox jumps over the lazy brown dog."
Usage in typography
This pangram is commonly used to display font samples and for testing computer keyboards.
| Examples of how the phrase is used in font display | |
|---|---|
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| The phrase used to display fonts in Kfontview | The phrase used to compare common word-processor typefaces in OpenOffice |
Usage in telegraphy
In earlier days the phrase was used by telex operators on a daily basis.[citation needed] When initiating a connection with a remote colleague, this sentence, followed by 1234567890, was typed in first at both sides to make sure that all characters were transmitted correctly. (A failure of a single character was much more common than it is today, due to the mechanical nature of the keyboards, printer devices and no error correction on telecom lines.) Compared to a line with all 26 characters of the alphabet typed in sequence, proofreading this phrase and spotting a missing character at the receiving side was more reliable and faster.
Usage in popular culture
Due to the widespread knowledge of the phrase, and due to its comical nature, many artworks have been developed that pictorially depict the action of a fox jumping over a dog or a related variation of it. Dan Santat, creator of Disney Channel's The Replacements and children’s book author, has created a cartoon of the phrase on his blog, where he accidentally wrote "jumped" instead of "jumps" and hence missed the letter "s" in his phrase. Furthermore, in his description of the illustration he wrote "aphabet" instead of "alphabet".[4] Other instances of phrase-related artworks include a typography workshop flyer[5], a widespread clipart image[6], and a music CD cover[7]. The May 9, 2008 issue of John Allen's the web-based comic Nest Heads features a child saying the phrase to a sleeping dog, in attempts to arouse him to play.[8] In the Disney movie The Fox and the Hound, there is a scene near the end where the fox is running fast and jumps over the lying-down hound, creating an in-context, non-contrived instance of the phrase.
Close variations are often created when the phrase is used in the arts. In the card game Magic: The Gathering, a "joke card" from the Unhinged series was created with a game-related variation of the phrase, "The quick onyx goblin jumps over the lazy dwarf."[9] In the Peanuts comic strip for May 27, 1974, Snoopy writes “The quick brown fox jumps over the unfortunate dog” on his typewriter.[10] In the movie Stripes, Bill Murray's character leads his platoon with this phrase during their rifle exercises.
The paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould used it as the final line in his celebrated essay "The Panda's Thumb of Technology."[11]
See also
References
- ^ Bronson, Linda Pennington (1888). Illustrative Shorthand. San Francisco. p. 76. http://books.google.com/books?id=PjZIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA76&dq=%22quick+brown+fox%22+date:1800-1900&lr=&as_brr=0#PPA76,M1.
- ^ "The Fox Typewriter". Pitman's Phonetic Journal. January 10, 1903.
- ^ Baden-Powell, Robert (1908). Scouting for Boys. London: Pearson.
- ^ Illustration Friday - Alphabet, Doodlevision, Blogspot
- ^ Quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, The Art Direction and Copywriting Blog, Blogspot
- ^ Image, Westbroek.com
- ^ Cover, Blackberry-music.net
- ^ Nest Heads, John Allen, Go Comics
- ^ Now I Know My ABC's, Gatherer
- ^ alt.comics.peanuts, Google Groups
- ^ Gould, Stephen Jay (1987). "The Panda's Thumb of Technology." Natural History 96 (1): 14-23; Reprinted in Bully for Brontosaurus. New York: W.W. Norton. 1992, pp. 59-75.
External links
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