One brave soul did take a stab at translating the almost-not-quite-Latin. According to The Guardian, Jaspreet Singh Boparai undertook the challenge with the goal of making the text “precisely as incoherent in English as it is in Latin – and to make it incoherent in the same way”.

Here is the classic lorem ipsum passage followed by Boparai’s odd, yet mesmerizing version:

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam hendrerit nisi sed sollicitudin pellentesque. Nunc posuere purus rhoncus pulvinar aliquam. Ut aliquet tristique nisl vitae volutpat. Nulla aliquet porttitor venenatis. Donec a dui et dui fringilla consectetur id nec massa. Aliquam erat volutpat.”

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It’s difficult to find examples of lorem ipsum in use before Letraset made it popular as a dummy text in the 1960s, although McClintock says he remembers coming across the lorem ipsum passage in a book of old metal type samples. So far he hasn’t 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.

McClintock wrote to Before & After to explain his discovery;

“What I find remarkable is that this text has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since some printer in the 1500s took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book; it has survived not only four centuries of letter-by-letter resetting but even the leap into electronic typesetting, essentially unchanged except for an occasional ‘ing’ or ‘y’ thrown in.

And anyways, as Cecil Adams reasoned, “[Do you really] think graphic arts supply houses were hiring classics scholars in the 1960s?” Perhaps. But it seems reasonable to imagine that there was a version in use far before the age of Letraset.

Whether a medieval typesetter chose to garble a well-known (but non-Biblical—that would have been sacrilegious) text, or whether a quirk in the 1914 Loeb Edition inspired a graphic designer, it’s admittedly an odd way for Cicero to sail into the 21st century.

Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar from Hampden-Sydney College, is credited with discovering the source behind the ubiquitous filler text. In seeing a sample of lorem ipsum, his interest was piqued by consectetur—a genuine, albeit rare, Latin word. Consulting a Latin dictionary led McClintock to a passage from De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (“On the Extremes of Good and Evil”), a first-century B.C. text from the Roman philosopher Cicero.

In particular, the garbled words of lorem ipsum bear an unmistakable resemblance to sections 1.10.32–33 of Cicero’s work, with the most notable passage excerpted below:

“Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem.”

A 1914 English translation by Harris Rackham reads:

“Nor is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure.”

McClintock’s eye for detail certainly helped narrow the whereabouts of lorem ipsum’s origin, however, the “how and when” still remain something of a mystery, with competing theories and timelines.

The 1914 Loeb Classical Library Edition ran out of room on page 34 for the Latin phrase “dolorem ipsum” (sorrow in itself). Thus, the truncated phrase leaves one page dangling with “do-”, while another begins with the now ubiquitous “lorem ipsum”.

“What I find remarkable is that this text has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since some printer in the 1500s took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book; it has survived not only four centuries of letter-by-letter resetting but even the leap into electronic typesetting, essentially unchanged except for an occasional ‘ing’ or ‘y’ thrown in.”

Whether a medieval typesetter chose to garble a well-known (but non-Biblical—that would have been sacrilegious) text, or whether a quirk in the 1914 Loeb Edition inspired a graphic designer, it’s admittedly an odd way for Cicero to sail into the 21st century.

“But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing of a pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness.

Nunc nec neque. Vestibulum ullamcorper mauris at ligula. Aliquam erat volutpat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed cursus turpis vitae tortor. Donec sodales sagittis magna. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Morbi ac felis. Etiam imperdiet imperdiet orci.

You don’t want them wondering why you filled their website with a foreign language, and you certainly don’t want anyone prematurely publishing it. I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness.

These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted.”

Nunc nec neque. Vestibulum ullamcorper mauris at ligula. Aliquam erat volutpat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed cursus turpis vitae tortor. Donec sodales sagittis magna. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Morbi ac felis. Etiam imperdiet imperdiet orci. Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus.Nunc nec neque. Vestibulum ullamcorper mauris at ligula. Aliquam erat volutpat. Aliquam erat volutpat…

The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.”

No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure.”

Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but 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?”

Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Morbi ac felis. Etiam imperdiet imperdiet orci. Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus.Nunc nec neque. Vestibulum ullamcorper mauris at ligula. Aliquam erat volutpat. Aliquam erat volutpat…

McClintock wrote to Before & After to explain his discovery:

Nunc nec neque. Vestibulum ullamcorper mauris at ligula. Aliquam erat volutpat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed cursus turpis vitae tortor. Donec sodales sagittis magna. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue.

Morbi ac felis. Etiam imperdiet imperdiet orci. Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus.Nunc nec neque. Vestibulum ullamcorper mauris at ligula. Aliquam erat volutpat. Aliquam erat volutpat…

Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus.Nunc nec neque. Vestibulum ullamcorper mauris at ligula. Aliquam erat volutpat. Aliquam erat volutpat…

Perhaps. But it seems reasonable to imagine that there was a version in use far before the age of Letraset. But it seems reasonable to imagine that there was a version in use far before the age of Letraset.