Pangram
From Citizendium - Reading time: 2 min
A pangram (Greek: pan gramma, "every letter"), or holoalphabetic sentence, is a sentence which uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. Pangrams are used, like lorem ipsum, to display typefaces and test equipment. For example, the pangram The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog was developed by Western Union to test Telex/TWX data communication equipment for accuracy and reliability.
Interesting pangrams are generally short ones; constructing a sentence that includes the fewest repeat letters possible is a challenging task. Longer pangrams that are enlightening, humorous, or eccentric can be noteworthy in their own right. In a sense, the pangram is the opposite of the lipogram, where the aim is to omit one or more letters.
Examples in English[edit]
- How razorback-jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts! (49 letters) (Used for font samples by the Macintosh, System 7 era)
- Cozy lummox gives smart squid who asks for job pen. (41 letters) (Used for font samples by the Macintosh, post-System 7)
- The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. (35 letters) (Used by Windows as sample text)
- Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (32 letters) (Used for font samples by Beagle Bros)
- The five boxing wizards jump quickly. (31 letters) (Used by XXDiff as sample text)
- Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (31 letters) (Used by Microsoft Windows XP for certain fonts)
- How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. (30 letters)
- Two driven jocks help fax my big quiz. (30 letters)
- Bright vixens jump; dozy fowl quack. (29 letters)
- Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim. (29 letters)
- Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim. (29 letters)
- Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow. (29 letters)
- Bawds jog, flick quartz, vex nymphs. (28 letters)
- Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex. (28 letters)
- Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox. (28 letters)
Perfect pangrams[edit]
A pangram in which each letter occurs only once is the pinnacle of the form. This is difficult to achieve without resorting to obscure words and proper nouns.
- Veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck.
- Junky qoph flags vext crwd zimb.
- Cwm fjord bank glyphs vext quiz.
- Zing, vext cwm fly jabs Kurd qoph.
- Phlegms fyrd wuz qvint jackbox.
- Quartz glyph job vex'd cwm finks.
- Squdgy fez, blank jimp crwth vox! (A short brimless felt hat barely blocks out the sound of a Celtic violin. - created by Claude Shannon)
- Cwm fjord veg balks nth pyx quiz. (Relaxing in basins at the end of inlets puts an end to the test from the box. - 'nth' is not an abbreviation)
- Jumbling vext frowzy hacks PDQ. (Being bounced around quickly annoyed the disheveled taxi drivers. - all words in high school dictionary)
References[edit]
External links[edit]
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