So how did the classical Latin become so incoherent? According to McClintock, a 15th century typesetter likely scrambled part of CiceroβsΒ De FinibusΒ in order to provide placeholder text to mockup various fonts for a type specimen book. Itβs difficult to find examples ofΒ lorem ipsumΒ in use before Letraset made it popular as a dummy text in the 1960s, althoughΒ McClintock saysΒ he remembers coming across theΒ lorem ipsumΒ passage in a book of old metal type samples. So far he hasnβt 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.
Donβt bother typing βlorem ipsumβ into Google translate. If you already tried, you may have gottenΒ anything from βNATOβ to βChinaβ, depending on how you capitalized the letters. The bizarre translation was fodder for conspiracy theories, but Google has since updated its βlorem ipsumβ translation to, boringly enough, βlorem ipsumβ. One brave soul did take a stab at translating the almost-not-quite-Latin.
According toΒ The Guardian, Jaspreet Singh Boparai undertook the challenge with the goal of making the text βprecisely as incoherent in English as it is in Latin β and to make it incoherent in the same wayβ. As a result, βthe Greek βeuβ in Latin became the French βbienβ [β¦] and the β-ingβ ending in βlorem ipsumβ seemed best rendered by an β-iendumβ in English.β
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As anΒ alternative theory, (and because Latin scholars do this sort of thing) someone tracked down a 1914 Latin edition ofΒ De FinibusΒ which challengesΒ McClintockβsΒ 15th century claims and suggests that the dawn ofΒ lorem ipsumΒ was as recent as the 20th century. The 1914 Loeb Classical Library Edition ran out of room on page 34 for the Latin phrase βdolorem ipsumβ (sorrow in itself). Thus, the truncated phrase leaves one page dangling with βdo-β, while another begins with the now ubiquitous βlorem ipsumβ.
Whether a medieval typesetter chose to garble a well-known (but non-Biblicalβthat would have been sacrilegious) text, or whether a quirk in the 1914 Loeb Edition inspired a graphic designer, itβs admittedly an odd way for Cicero to sail into the 21st century.
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