Too cute for Typography Geeks.
That phrase 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.









7 Comments
Great post! – Funny and informative, nice combination.
the guys are speaking dutch in this movie
.
they say
“look look look
he’s going under it…
look look he’s sitting on top, how cute”
video was probably taken somewhere in the netherlands
thnx for sharing
It was known in the late 19th century, and used in Baden-Powel’s book Scouting for Boys (1908) as a practice sentence for signalling. In later years, the phrase was popularized by Western Union and the Phone Company to test Telex/TWX data communication equipment for accuracy and reliability.
It was often used for testing the teletype services (a procedure known as “foxing”) when these machines were still used.
Source: Wikipedia
Cool!
Amazing! So this phrase isn’t fictional anymore. Thanks for the proof! Will always remember this video, when browsing fonts…
Holy moly, yes!
Besides loving the video, you brought back memories of my very first job. At 10, I worked for a man who’s business replaced the worn rubber rollers on Underwood typewriters and he had me type this very same sentence to test them.
Haha! Great!