h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Lorem Ipsum: Latin for Typographers - A4204135
Author: Edward the Bonobo - In a dusty black coat with a red right hand - U803114

I put this in PR before checking whether there was already an entry for the topic. The peer reviewrs' consensus was positive...so here's another go.

Hiya,

Is there any chance you could incorporate the material already in Njan's Edited Entry (and of course credit Njan as co-Researcher)?

I'll have another look over.

My initial difficulty was that I couldn't see how to do it. I don't think I've left out anything that was covered in the original.

But I'm more than happy to credit the original. Njan thought of it first!

Oh...in case this has been lost in the noise...originally I submitted to PR without checking whether the Guide had already covered the topic.

The problem we have is that the Update Forum is really for entries that are underwritten or that have become outdated. It's not really for one perfectly servicable entry to be replaced by anotehr just because they're different.

If your entry offers new information, it can be added to the existing entry, but I'm not sure if this new one is significantly updated, just different...

Sigh...you're probably right! Serves me right for not looking first! Still...I enjoyed writing it and that's the main thing.

Coincidentally...yesterday I was trying to solve a tricky Word 2003 problem and stumbles across some Lipsum in their Help system.

There's one very big difference between the two:

The old entry (which seems to be by ArnieP, not Njan who was the sub-ed) gives the impression that the first consistent appearance of "lorem ipsum" was in the 1960s Letraset, where someone stumbled across an old 1500s example and started using it. Edward's entry says that "lorem ipsum" was used for hundreds of years in the printing industry, though I notice it doesn't actually give any detail about 18th/19th/early 20th century usage.

If that's the case, that it was a natural progression from old-style printing, rather than a freak decision by one Letraset designer, then the layout of Edward's entry is much clearer, and the old entry actually misleading, so it's well worth updating!


Azara

Thanks for the clarification there, Azarah!

I think I'm getting word blindness

So, do we feel that, contrary to my previous post, this should indeed become an undate?

I just want to be really careful because of what happens at the end of this process

I'd be honoured!

And now I can update my version to point out exactly where to look in Word

Could you include some more reference to its use in the 18th/19th centuries? As I said above, that's a noticeably extra bit of information.


Azara

Not specifically...but the fact that printers have traditionally called it 'Greeking' certainly suggests that it pre-dates Letraset.

I did discover various 'History of printing' sites...but frankly life's too short...

It would be interesting to have a word or two of translation of the bit of Cicero. I read somewhere that "lorem" is the end of a word that got unceremoniously chopped, but I can't remember what or where.

Slight niggle: to the publishers of 1500 Latin would not have had the convenience of unmeaning. Most of the books they published, at least a high proportion of them, would have been in Latin. Even the fiction: Utopia, for instance.

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."

True, very true...and a sound basis for Atheist Humanist ethics.

Good point about the Latin. But would artisan printers have 'had the Latin'?

No, but would artisan printers have done the proofreading? Or chosen the font and styles?

Just checking back in to see how this is coming along