Expert: Maria - 9/4/2006

Question
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam
nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna
aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam. Stet cita
kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit
amet.

Answer
Hello,

The text you wrote is nothing but a bad deformation as well as a hodgepodge of the original passage we read in Cicero, "De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum”( On the Ends of Good and Evil), book 1. chapter 32 ff.(See below).

For example, the first word ‘lorem’ which does not exist in Latin is probably a part of the word ‘dolorem’ (meaning ‘pain’) whose the first syllable ‘do-‘ was in the previous line, while ‘-lorem’ was in the following line.

In fact, it seems that during the 1500s a printer, who did not know the Latin language, took a line of the Cicero's passage which started with "LOREM" , while the previous line ended with "DO" and used it as well as the  rest of  the passage as a page of type samples  to demonstrate a font, without distracting the ordinary reader who did not usually know Latin and then would not have  spent time reading text rather than looking at the font.
Since then, the Latin-like text has been the printing industry's standard for fake, or dummy, text.

In short,  the  text  you quote was used to demonstrate printing layouts and came into use not long after the printing press itself. It persists in software manuals to this day.

Anyway, if you want a translation, I must point out that it’s impossible to translate such a gibberish, while I can translate the real quotation from Cicero (see below).

Best regards,
Maria

______________________________________________________
NOTA BENE.

1-This  version has additional letters — such as k, y — that were uncommon or missing in the Latin, and nonsense words such as ‘kasd’,  ‘takimata’,  and ‘gubergren’  added to the original passage to achieve a distribution of letters that more closely approximates English.

2-Here’s the  original passage  from Cicero, On the Ends of Good and Evil , Book I, chapters 32-33:

“neque porro quisquam est, qui 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? At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus……”

-“ Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? But we  accuse them and really  think that they deserve hate….”