A colleague asked me today what this text meant:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Aliquid veniam harum quas similique quis, quisquam tempore iste. Alias soluta dolorum ratione, dolorem quia corrupti, suscipit eveniet dolor dignissimos voluptas laborum debitis ea fugiat aliquam rem ullam minus a aliquid pariatur!
At first glance it looked like English, but I could not understand it. After some searching, it turned out to be Latin. Why would a programmer write something like this?
What Is Lorem Ipsum?
Lorem ipsum has been used in Western printing and design since the 15th century. With the rise of digital typesetting, this centuries-old placeholder text became popular again. Since it starts with “Lorem ipsum,” it is commonly used for title testing and referred to as Lorem ipsum (or Lipsum for short).
A common Lorem ipsum passage:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
A Bit of History
People used to think this was just meaningless text designed to let viewers focus on typography and layout. However, Latin scholar Richard McClintock discovered that Lorem ipsum originates from Cicero’s De finibus bonorum et malorum (45 BC):
Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…
(No one loves pain itself, nor seeks it, nor wants it, for it is pain…)
Some later versions replace letters with K, W, Z (which do not exist in Latin) to match the letter frequency of modern English, or add words like “zzril” and “takimata.”
In short: it is placeholder text for checking layouts during design. Looks fancy, but it is just filler.