Template talk:Lorem ipsum

I am putting lorem ipsum inside <span style="color:gray;"></span> tags, so that it is even less conspicuous.

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.

Maybe it should be put into the template directly? — Omegatron 03:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly no. This text is to be used for testing the layout of pages, including its color, contrast, and the effect of linewraps. It is specifically tuned for matching the metrics of texts written in English, except that it uses pseudo-Latin and contain many non-words to match the expected colorness. Please look at Wikipedia for its intended use (since several centuries) and Wikisource for its original published version (created by Letraset and used as test texts for showing layouts of newspapers, testing fonts...). It MUST not be actual Latin and must not have any meaning. Its role is purely visual and it must be suitable for use with any RGB color, font styles, and sizes, decorations, in order to test them. verdy_p (talk) 01:33, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bad Latin[edit]

The text in the template is a very corrupted Latin. I realize the corruption goes back a long time, and that the text is valuable as a placeholder, so the specific words don't really matter. And yet, as a Wikipedian, the abject wrongness of the text (e.g. there is no such word as 'adipiscing' in Latin, nor 'tempor') bothers me. Is there any good reason not to correct the text this template generates to be the proper Latin?

Here is the proper Latin (from Cicero's De Finibus) for those lines:

[do]lorem ipsum, quia dolor sit, amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

"adispiscing" is in the original, just like "tempor". The Lorem Ipsum has NEVER been actually in Latin, it was created by extracting some texts fragments in Latin and modifying it on purpose so that it no longer means anything but shows and tests various font and styles features. The original text from Cicero in Classic Latin has NEVER been used for the Lorem Ipsum. verdy_p (talk) 01:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If no one objects here, I will make the changes in a week or so. Ijon (talk) 19:31, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest capitalization, for the text to properly fill its modern function. Except for that: yes, please! /Julle (talk) 21:24, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support! --Slashme (talk) 22:17, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ijon, I guess there are no objections ;) --Base (talk) 18:25, 20 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Base: Indeed! Thank you for reminding me to scratch this five-year-old itch. :) Ijon (talk) 19:42, 20 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Historically the Lorem Ipsum was bad latin on purpose since ALWAYS. This pseudo-fix is not the original traditional text (see Wikisource !), as it unliaterally changes the text, including the coloring (blackness) by adding too many commas and gives it a Latin semantics that it did not have (and actually must not have, so that it is recognized as pseudo-text). The Lorum Ipsum has ALWAYS been pseudo-text, intended to be read like this and not being actual Latin. This change is opposed to its purpose. verdy_p (talk) 01:26, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for expressing the reason for your reversion. I am aware of the history of Lorem ipsum. I also understand early English typographers used it to test type faces, and the corrupted word 'adipiscing', for example, was created to see what the -ing suffix, extremely common in English, would look like. However, I was under the impression this template here, on Meta, is not used for such purposes, but only as filler/placeholder. Is this not the case? Also, what are "too many commas"? Too many for what? I'm just asking out of curiosity; I do not intend to contest the revert. It's not so important. Ijon (talk) 12:38, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Quite the opposite: on Commons this is widely used to test the layout and typefaces. This is the major use. Yes this pseudo-text is tweaked towards English. But another aspect is that this pseudo-text is recognized as such by search engines, and not classified as if it had a meaning. The Lorem Ipsum was created on purpose so that it means nothing for anyone (Pseudo-Latin was used so that it behaves randomly in English while still showing the typographic features.

Wikousrce and Wikiepdia document this. If you want the true Cicero text in Latin (not in English Wikource also has a copy for it and it will be tagged properly as Latin, not "pig" English like this text which could eventually be tagged as "en-x-lolcat", or just "und" as it matches actually no language at all, except the Latin script itself; there are similar pseudo-texts made for other scripts or languages, used by typographers and page designers). verdy_p (talk) 14:38, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]