So how did the classical Latin become so incoherent? According to McClintock, a 15th century typesetter likely scrambled part of Ciceroâs De Finibus in order to provide placeholder text to mockup various fonts for a type specimen book. Itâs difficult to find examples of lorem ipsum in use before Letraset made it popular as a dummy text in the 1960s, although McClintock says he remembers coming across the lorem ipsum passage in a book of old metal type samples. So far he hasnât relocated where he once saw the passage, but the popularity of Cicero in the 15th century supports the theory that the filler text has been used for centuries.
Donât bother typing âlorem ipsumâ into Google translate. If you already tried, you may have gotten anything from âNATOâ to âChinaâ, depending on how you capitalized the letters. The bizarre translation was fodder for conspiracy theories, but Google has since updated its âlorem ipsumâ translation to, boringly enough, âlorem ipsumâ. One brave soul did take a stab at translating the almost-not-quite-Latin.
According to The Guardian, Jaspreet Singh Boparai undertook the challenge with the goal of making the text âprecisely as incoherent in English as it is in Latin â and to make it incoherent in the same wayâ. As a result, âthe Greek âeuâ in Latin became the French âbienâ [âŠ] and the â-ingâ ending in âlorem ipsumâ seemed best rendered by an â-iendumâ in English.â
