"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is a panagram (a phrase that uses all the letters of the alphabet) that has been used to test typewriters and computer keyboards because it is coherent and short. It was known in the late 19th century, and Baden-Powell's book Scouting for Boys (1908) used the phrase as a practice sentence for signaling. It appears as a sample typing practice in L. Bronson's, Illustrative Shorthand, 1888. 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".

Variations of the panagram

A few variations of this panagram exist, including "the quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog," and "a quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Each of these variations has 33 letters, rather than 35 in the version for the title of this article. Please note that the version "a quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog," and any version where the word "jumped" is in the past tense are not panagrams. Versions of the sentence without the word "the" are missing an "h", and most versions of the sentence with the word "jumped" are missing an "s."

Usages in computing

Microsoft Word

In Microsoft Word 2003 or earlier, typing =rand(x,y), where x and y are integers, then pressing Enter at the end of the sentence causes the original sentence to be replaced by the phrase repeatedly for x paragraphs and y sentences per paragraph. In Microsoft Word 2007, it has been changed to =rand.old(x,y).

Font display

The pangram is a frequently-used phrase used to display font samples, as it contains all letters of the alphabet in a meaningful phrase.

See also

• Filler text
• Lorem ipsum
• ETAOIN SHRDLU
• Pangram

References

External links

• Sentences that contain all letters commonly used in a language
• Sentences in other languages that contain all letters of the alphabet
• Pangrams in Russian, English and some other languages
• The pangram homepage
• In Vista, jackdaws appear to be somewhat endangered
• The lazy yet foxy jackdaw I love jumped over my quick brown sphinx dog of quartz