Pangram

A pangram (Greek: pan gramma, "every letter"), or holoalphabetic sentence, is a sentence which uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. Pangrams are used, like lorem ipsum, to display typefaces and test equipment. For example, the pangram The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog was developed by Western Union to test Telex/TWX data communication equipment for accuracy and reliability.

Interesting pangrams are generally short ones; constructing a sentence that includes the fewest repeat letters possible is a challenging task. Longer pangrams that are enlightening, humorous, or eccentric can be noteworthy in their own right. In a sense, the pangram is the opposite of the lipogram, where the aim is to omit one or more letters.

Examples in English

• How razorback-jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts! (49 letters) (Used for font samples by the Macintosh, System 7 era)
• Back in June we delivered oxygen equipment of the same size. (49 letters)
• A quick movement of the enemy will jeopardize six gunboats. (49 letters)
• All questions asked by five watch experts amazed the judge. (49 letters)
• Crazy Fredericka bought many very exquisite opal jewels. (48 letters)
• Sixty zippers were quickly picked from the woven jute bag. (48 letters)
• John Prady, give me a black walnut box of quite small size. (47 letters)
• Big July earthquakes confound zany experimental vow. (45 letters)
• Six big devils from Japan quickly forgot how to waltz. (44 letters)
• My girl wove six dozen plaid jackets before she quit. (43 letters)
• Cozy lummox gives smart squid who asks for job pen. (41 letters) (Used for font samples by the Macintosh, post-System 7)
• Adjusting quiver and bow, Zompyc killed the fox. (39 letters)
• My faxed joke won a pager in the cable TV quiz show. (39 letters)
• Brawny gods just flocked up to quiz and vex him. (38 letters)
• The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. (35 letters) (Used by Windows as sample text)
• The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog. (33 letters)
• The jay, pig, fox, zebra and my wolves quack! (33 letters)
• Blowzy red vixens fight for a quick jump. (33 letters)
• Cozy sphinx waves quart jug of bad milk. (32 letters)
• A very bad quack might jinx zippy fowls. (32 letters)
• Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (32 letters) (Used for font samples by Beagle Bros)
• Few quips galvanized the mock jury box. (32 letters)
• The five boxing wizards jump quickly. (31 letters) (Used by XXDiff as sample text)
• Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (31 letters) (Used by Microsoft Windows XP in certain cases i.e. when providing samples of the FreesiaUPC or Arabic Transparent family of fonts)
• How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. (30 letters)
• Two driven jocks help fax my big quiz. (30 letters)
• Bright vixens jump; dozy fowl quack. (29 letters)
• Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim. (29 letters)
• Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim. (29 letters)
• Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow. (29 letters)
• Bawds jog, flick quartz, vex nymphs. (28 letters)
• Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex. (28 letters)
• Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox. (28 letters)

Perfect pangrams

A pangram in which each letter occurs only once is the pinnacle of the form. This is difficult to achieve without resorting to obscure words and proper nouns. Note that purists disapprove of using initials.

With proper nouns

• Blowzy night-frumps vex'd Jack Q.
• Glum Schwartzkopf vex'd by NJ IQ.
• New job: fix Mr. Gluck's hazy TV, PDQ! (includes 5 punctuation symbols)
• Frowzy things plumb vex'd Jack Q.
• J. Q. Vandz struck my big fox whelp.
• Meg Schwarzkopf quit Jynx Blvd. (created by Ted Clarke)
• Mr. Jock, TV Quiz Ph.D, bags few lynx.
• Quartz jock vends BMW glyph fix

Without proper nouns

• Veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck.
• Junky qoph flags vext crwd zimb.
• Cwm fjord bank glyphs vext quiz.
• Zing, vext cwm fly jabs Kurd qoph.
• Phlegms fyrd wuz qvint jackbox.
• Quartz glyph job vex'd cwm finks.
• Squdgy fez, blank jimp crwth vox! (A short brimless felt hat barely blocks out the sound of a Celtic violin. - created by Claude Shannon)
• Cwm fjord veg balks nth pyx quiz. (Relaxing in basins at the end of inlets puts an end to the test from the box. - 'nth' is not an abbreviation)
• Jumbling vext frowzy hacks PDQ. (Being bounced around quickly annoyed the disheveled taxi drivers. - all words in high school dictionary)

Other languages

All letters

• Bulgarian:
  • Жълтата дюля беше щастлива, че пухът, който цъфна, замръзна като гьон.
    • The yellow quince was happy that the fluff, which bloomed, froze like sole-leather
• Catalan:
  • (with ç) Jove xef, porti whisky amb quinze glaçons d'hidrogen, coi!
    • Young chef, bring whisky with fifteen hydrogen ice cubes, damn!
  • Aqueix betzol, Jan, comprava whisky de figa
    • That idiot, Jan, was buying fig whisky
• Danish:
  • Quizdeltagerne spiste jordbær med fløde, mens cirkusklovnen Walther spillede på xylofon
    • The quiz participants ate strawberries with cream while Walther the circus clown played the xylophone
• Dutch:
  • Sexy qua lijf, doch bang voor 't zwempak
    • Sexy of body, though scared of the swimsuit
  • Pa's wijze lynx bezag vroom het fikse aquaduct
    • Dad's wise lynx piously observed the sturdy aqueduct.
  • Several others: "Filmquiz bracht knappe ex-yogi van de wijs", "Max boft: z'n vrouw is qua type degelijk", "Lex bederft Uw quiz met typisch vakjargon", "Zwicht exquis blondje, gap vijf mark", "Z'n dom exquis wijfje bracht vlug kip.", "Sexy dame bezorgt chique volkje fijne wip".
• Esperanto:
  • Laŭ Ludoviko Zamenhof bongustas freŝa ĉeĥa manĝaĵo kun spicoj.
    • According to Ludwig Zamenhof, fresh Czech food with spices tastes good.
• Finnish:
  • (A perfect pangram which doesn't include characters only found in foreign or loanwords (b, c, f, q, w, x, z, å)): Törkylempijä vongahdus
    • Muckysnogger booty-call.
• French:
  • Portez ce whisky au vieux juge blond qui fume
    • Go take this whisky to the old blond judge who is smoking
  • (with diacritics) Le cœur déçu mais l'âme plutôt naïve, Louÿs rêva de crapaüter en canoë au delà des îles, près du mälström où brûlent les novæ
    • His heart disappointed, but his soul more naive, Louÿs dreamt of doing the nasty in a canoe beyond the isles, close to the maelstrom where the novas burn
  • Bâchez la queue du wagon-taxi avec les pyjamas du fakir
    • Tarpolin-up the taxi-railcar tail with the fakir’s pajamas
• German
  • (no umlauts or ß): Sylvia wagt quick den Jux bei Pforzheim
    • Sylvia dares quickly the joke at Pforzheim
  • (no umlauts or ß): Franz jagt im komplett verwahrlosten Taxi quer durch Bayern
    • Franz chases in the completely shabby cab straight through Bavaria
  • (with umlauts and ß): Victor jagt zwölf Boxkämpfer quer über den großen Sylter Deich
    • Victor chases twelve box fighters across the great dam of Sylt
  • (with umlauts and ß, each letter exactly once): "Fix, Schwyz!" quäkt Jürgen blöd vom Paß
    • "Quick, Schwyz!" Jürgen squawks zanily from the pass
  • "Falsches Üben von Xylophonmusik quält jeden größeren Zwerg" (used by KDE)
    • Wrong practising of xylophone music bothers every large dwarf
• Greek:
  • Ξεσκεπάζω την ψυχοφθόρα βδελυγμία.
    • I uncover the soul-destroying abhorrence.
• Hebrew:
  • דג סקרן שט בים מאוכזב ולפתע מצא חברה
    • A curious fish sailed the sea disappointedly, and suddenly found himself a girlfriend
  • או הנסה אלהים, לבוא לקחת לו גוי מקרב גוי, במסת באתת ובמופתים ובמלחמה וביד חזקה ובזרוע נטויה, ובמוראים גדלים: ככל אשר-עשה לכם יהוה אלהיכם, במצרים--לעיניך (Deuteronomy 4:34)
  • לכן חכו לי נאם יהוה ליום קומי לעד, כי משפטי לאסף גוים לקבצי ממלכות, לשפך עליהם זעמי כל חרון אפי, כי באש קנאתי תאכל כל הארץ (Zephaniah 3:8 - the only verse in the Hebrew Bible that contains all medial forms of the letters plus all final forms)
  • (each letter exactly once) שפן אכל קצת גזר בטעם חסה, ודי.
    • (A rabbit ate some lettuce flavored carrot and that's it)
• Hungarian
  • Egy hűtlen vejét fülöncsípő, dühös mexikói úr Wesselényinél kaszál Quitóban.
    • A mad Mexican man, who caught his disloyal son-in-law, reaps grass close to Wesselényi in Quito.
• Icelandic:
  • Kæmi ný öxi hér ykist þjófum nú bæði víl og ádrepa
    • If a new axe were here, thieves would feel increasing deterrence and punishment.
• Irish
  • D'fhuascail Íosa Úrmhac na hóighe Beannaithe pór Éava agus Ádhaimh
  • D'ḟuascail Íosa Úrṁac na hóiġe Beannaiṫe pór Éaḃa agus Áḋaiṁ
• Italian:
  • "Quel fez sghembo copre davanti"
    • That slanted fez covers the front (without the foreign letters j, k, w, x, and y)
  • "Ma la volpe col suo balzo ha raggiunto il quieto Fido"
    • But the fox with his leap has reached the quiet Fido (without foreign letters)
  • "Quel vituperabile xenofobo zelante assaggia il whisky ed esclama: alleluja!"
    • That blameworthy and zealous xenophobe tastes his whisky and says: Alleluja!
• Japanese:
  • いろはにほへと / ちりぬるを / わかよたれそ / つねならむ / うゐのおくやま / けふこえて / あさきゆめみし / ゑひもせす
  • The poem Iroha uses all 47 classical kana characters exactly once, and it comes in the form of a poem. Iroha is so classically entrenched that any modern construction of a Japanese pangram in classical form is called iroha-uta.
• Korean:
  • 키스의 고유조건은 입술끼리 만나야 하고 특별한 기술은 필요치 않다.
    • The essential condition for kiss is that lips meet and there is no special technique required.
• Lithuanian:
  • Įlinkdama fechtuotojo špaga sublykčiojusi pragręžė apvalų arbūzą
    • Incurving fencer sword sparkled and perforated a round watermelon
• Lojban:
  • .o'i mu xagji sofybakni cu zvati le purdi
    • Watch out, five hungry Soviet-cows are in the garden!
• Norwegian
  • Vår sære Zulu fra badeøya spilte jo whist og quickstep i min taxi.
    • Our strange Zule from the bathing Island did actually play whist and quickstep in my cab.
  • Høvdingens kjære squaw får litt pizza i Mexico by
    • The chief's dear squaw gets a little pizza in Mexico City
• Polish:
  • (each letter exactly once) Pójdźże, kiń tę chmurność w głąb flaszy!
    • Come on, drop your sadness into the depth of a bottle!
  • (each letter exactly once) Pchnąć w tę łódź jeża lub ośm skrzyń fig.
    • Push into that boat a hedgehog or eight boxes of figs.
  • (each letter exactly once) Mężny bądź, chroń pułk twój i sześć flag.
    • Be brave, protect your regiment and six flags.
• Portuguese:
  • (without diacritics) Um pequeno jabuti xereta viu dez cegonhas felizes.
    • A curious little tortoise saw ten happy storks.
  • (without diacritics) Gazeta publica hoje no jornal uma breve nota de faxina na quermesse.
    • The journalists publish today at the newspaper a short note about the cleaning at the kirmiss.
  • À noite, vovô Kowalsky vê o ímã cair no pé do pingüim queixoso e vovó põe açúcar no chá de tâmaras do jabuti feliz.
    • At night, grandpa Kowalsky sees the magnet falling in the complaining penguin's foot and grandma puts sugar in the happy tortoise's date tea.
  • Luís argüia à Júlia que «brações, fé, chá, óxido, pôr, zângão» eram palavras do português.
    • Luís argued to Júlia that “big arms, faith, tea, oxide, to put, bee” were Portuguese words.
• Romanian:
  • Gheorghe, obezul, a reuşit să obţină jucându-se un flux în Quebec de o mie kilowaţioră.
    • George, the obese, managed to obtain by playing a flux in Quebec of a thousand Kilowatthours
• Russian:
  • (traditional telegraph test; lacks ъ and ё) В чащах юга жил бы цитрус? Да, но фальшивый экземпляр!
    • Would a citrus live in the bushes of the south? Yes, but only a fake one!
  • (Using quasiobsolete spelling for last word to include ъ) В чащах юга жил бы цитрус? Да, но фальшивый экземпляръ!
    • same
  • (each letter exactly once) Эх, чужак! Общий съём цен шляп (юфть) — вдрызг!
    • Eh, stranger! The general takings from prices of hats (made from a thick leather) have completely crashed!
  • (each letter exactly once) Экс-граф? Плюш изъят. Бьём чуждый цен хвощ!
    • Ex-count? The plush has been confiscated. Let's fight against the horsetail that is alien to prices!
  • (each letter exactly once) Эй, жлоб! Где туз? Прячь юных съёмщиц в шкаф.
    • Hey, chuff! Where is the ace? Hide young lessee-girls in the cupboard.
  • (Microsoft used it in fontview.exe for Cyrillic fonts without «же») Съешь ещё этих мягких французских булок, да выпей же чаю.
    • Eat more of these soft French loaves and drink tea.
  • (Used in KDE) Широкая электрификация южных губерний даст мощный толчок подъёму сельского хозяйства.
    • Widespread electrification of southern guberniyas will give a powerful incentive to the rise of agriculture.

• Serbian:
  • Љубазни фењерџија чађавог лица хоће да ми покаже штос.
  • Ljubazni fenjerdžija čađavog lica hoće da mi pokaže štos.
    • A kind lamplighter with grimy face wants to show me a stunt.

• Slovene:
  • Šerif bo za vajo spet kuhal domače žgance
    • For an exercise, sheriff will again make home-made mush
  • Piškur molče grabi fižol z dna cezijeve hoste
    • Lambry silently grasps beans from the bottom of cezij forest
• Spanish:
  • (with ñ and diacritics) El veloz murciélago hindú comía feliz cardillo y kiwi. La cigüeña tocaba el saxofón detrás del palenque de paja. (Used in Windows as sample text)
    • The quick Hindu bat ate happy golden thistle and kiwi. The stork played the saxophone behind the straw arena.
  • (with ñ, ll and rr) El pingüino Wenceslao hizo kilómetros bajo exhaustiva lluvia y frío, añoraba a su querido cachorro.
    • The penguin Wenceslao did kilometres under exhaustive rain and cold, longing for its dear cub.
  • Jovencillo emponzoñado de whisky: ¡qué figurota exhibe!
    • Whisky-intoxicated youngster - what a figure you're showing!
  • Ese libro explica en su epígrafe las hazañas y aventuras de Don Quijote de la Mancha en Kuwait.
    • That book explains in its epigraph the deeds and adventures of Don Quijote de la Mancha in Kuwait.
  • Queda gazpacho, fibra, látex, jamón, kiwi y viñas.
    • There is still gazpacho, fibre, latex, ham, kiwi and vineyards.
  • Whisky bueno: ¡excitad mi frágil pequeña vejez!
    • Good whisky, excite my frail, little old age!
• Swedish:
  • (lacks q, x and z) Flygande bäckasiner söka hwila på mjuka tuvor.
    • Flying snipes seek rest on soft tufts [of grass].
  • (each letter exactly once) Yxskaftbud, ge vår wczonmö iqhjälp.
    • Axe handle messenger, give our WC zone maiden IQ help.

• Thai:
  • เป็นมนุษย์สุดประเสริฐเลิศคุณค่า กว่าบรรดาฝูงสัตว์เดรัจฉาน จงฝ่าฟันพัฒนาวิชาการ อย่าล้างผลาญฤๅเข่นฆ่าบีฑาใคร ไม่ถือโทษโกรธแช่งซัดฮึดฮัดด่า หัดอภัยเหมือนกีฬาอัชฌาสัย ปฏิบัติประพฤติกฎกำหนดใจ พูดจาให้จ๊ะๆ จ๋า น่าฟังเอยฯ
    • Humans are worth and more superb than any kind of animals. Do develop yourself in academic matter. Do not destroy or kill anyone. Do not be angry or execrate anyone. Do forgive like the game spirit. Do behave under morals and rules. Do politely confer with others. (These phrases owned by The Computer Association of Thailand under the Royal Patronage of His Majesty the King)

• Ukrainian:
  • Чуєш їх, доцю, га? Кумедна ж ти, прощайся без ґольфів!
    • Daughter, do you hear them, eh? Oh, you are funny! Say good-buy without knee-length socks.
  • (with apostrophe sign) Жебракують філософи при ґанку церкви в Гадячі, ще й шатро їхнє п'яне знаємо.
    • The philosophers beg near the porch of the church in Hadiach, and we are even know their drunk marquee.

Only letters with diacritical marks and others national specific letters

A variant tries to make a word or phrase containing at least all letters with diacritical marks:

• Czech: (čďňřšťž áéěíóúůý)
  • Příliš (příšerně) žluťoučký kůň úpěl ďábelské ódy ("too yellow (horribly yellow) horse moaned devillish odas"),
  • Hleď, toť přízračný kůň v mátožné póze šíleně úpí. ("See, that phantasmic horse moans like crazy in feeble pose")
  • Zvlášť zákeřný učeň s ďolíčky běží podél zóny úlů. ("Extra malicious apprentice with dimples runs beside the zone of beehives")
  • Loď čeří kýlem tůň obzvlášť v Grónské úžině. ("Ship churns up the pool with the keel, especially at the greenland straits")
• Esperanto: Eĥoŝanĝo ĉiuĵaŭde ("echo change every Thursday")
• German: Heizölrückstoßabdämpfung ("fuel oil recoil absorber")
• Hungarian: árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép ("flood-proof mirror-drilling machine")
• Icelandic: Sævör grét áðan því úlpan var ónýt ("Sævör cried earlier because the jacket was ruined")
• Polish: Zażółć gęślą jaźń ("make your self yellow with a fiddle")
• Turkish: Şişli'de büyük çöp yığınları ("Large amounts of garbage in Şişli")

Ideographic scripts

• Chinese:
  • The nature of written Chinese results in something slightly different. See Thousand Character Classic. It is a one thousand-character poem with each character used exactly once, although it does not include all Chinese characters.

Self-enumerating pangrams

A self-enumerating pangram is one which describes exactly the number of letters it itself contains. Because changing the description changes the numbers of letters used in the description, the task of finding such a pangram is exceedingly complex.

This particularly interesting kind of pangram arose from some verbal horseplay between Douglas Hofstadter, an AI researcher and writer for Scientific American, Rudy Kousbroek, a Dutch linguist and essayist, and Lee Sallows, a British electronics engineer. Hofstadter posed the problem of sentences that describe themselves, prompting Sallows to devise the following:

Only the fool would take trouble to verify that his sentence was composed of ten a's, three b's, four c's, four d's, forty-six e's, sixteen f's, four g's, thirteen h's, fifteen i's, two k's, nine l's, four m's, twenty-five n's, twenty-four o's, five p's, sixteen r's, forty-one s's, thirty-seven t's, ten u's, eight v's, eight w's, four x's, eleven y's, twenty-seven commas, twenty-three apostrophes, seven hyphens and, last but not least, a single !.

This, while interesting, is not a complete pangram as it lacks a j, q, and z. Kousbroek published a Dutch equivalent, which spurred Sallows, who lives in the Netherlands and reads the paper where Kousbroek writes his essays, to think harder about this problem in order to solve it more generally. Initial attempts to write a program for this came to naught, but, in 1984, he decided to construct a dedicated piece of hardware for this task, the Pangram Machine. This accepts a description of the initial sentence fragment, and tries to fill in the blanks. The result was later published in Scientific American in October of 1984, as follows:

This Pangram contains four a's, one b, two c's, one d, thirty e's, six f's, five g's, seven h's, eleven i's, one j, one k, two l's, two m's, eighteen n's, fifteen o's, two p's, one q, five r's, twenty-seven s's, eighteen t's, two u's, seven v's, eight w's, two x's, three y's, & one z.

Pangrams from restricted sets

Postal Codes

Four perfect pangrams using the postal abbreviations of the US states and territories and the Canadian provinces and territories are:

• AZ, DE, FL, GU, KS, MB, NJ, OH, PR, QC, TX, VI, WY
• AZ, DE, FL, GU, MB, NJ, OH, PR, QC, SK, TX, VI, WY
• AZ, FL, GU, HI, KY, MB, NJ, OR, PE, QC, SD, TX, WV
• AZ, FL, GU, KY, MB, NJ, OH, PE, RI, QC, SD, TX, WV

Chemical Element Symbols

It is not possible to make a perfect pangram out of current chemical element symbols, but it is possible using two disused ones. UNQ, for unnilquadium, is in every pangram, as it is only one of two chemical symbols with a Q, the other being UUQ, for ununquadium (the two U's prevent its use). The other disused symbol can be J (for iodine), Jg (for Jargonium), or Jo (for Joliotium), as the only ones with J's.

Here is one of many possibilities utilizing Jo:

• Al, Bk, Cf, Gd, H, Jo, Mt, P, Si, Unq, V, W, Xe, Y, Zr

External links

• Pangrams at rec.puzzles
• Pangrams at Word Oddities
• A list of pangrams in several languages
• Another account of Lee Sallow's efforts
• Pangrams at Fun with Words
• A pangram list
• Pangrams at AskOxford