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A pangram is a unique sentence in which every letter of the alphabet is used at least once. The name
comes from the Greek root words pan, meaning "all," and gram, meaning "something written or
recorded". Like any good sentence, good examples of pangrams should contain a subject and a
predicate, but the real purpose of a pangram goes beyond its meaning alone.
Because pangrams contain every letter of the alphabet, they are particularly useful to artists who design
fonts, as a pangram allows them to display all available letters in a given typeset. Likewise, they are
useful for people to practice their handwriting, whether for a child learning cursive or a calligrapher
trying a new pen tip. Often they're used just for fun wordplay.
Pangrams exist in every language, though they may be more or less difficult to construct depending on
the language and its unique alphabet.
Perfect Pangrams
A perfect pangram is a sentence that uses each letter of the alphabet only one time. In English this
means that there are can only be 26 letters in the entire sentence. This is a very difficult thing to do, and
the only pangrams that work perfectly in English are forced to use abbreviations. For example:
Other perfect pangrams in English do exist, but they don't make much sense and are often forced to
borrow words from a foreign language to work, such as:
When you allow for some letters to be used more than once, it's possible to come up with many more
pangrams in English. The most famous of all is:
The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog. - Michigan School Moderator
But there are many others. For example:
Finally, there's a famous long pangram that tells you exactly how many of each letter it uses:
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. - Lee Sallows
A pangram is a unique sentence in which every letter of the alphabet is used at least once. The name
comes from the Greek root words pan, meaning "all," and gram, meaning "something written or
recorded". Like any good sentence, good examples of pangrams should contain a subject and a
predicate, but the real purpose of a pangram goes beyond its meaning alone.
Because pangrams contain every letter of the alphabet, they are particularly useful to artists who design
fonts, as a pangram allows them to display all available letters in a given typeset. Likewise, they are
useful for people to practice their handwriting, whether for a child learning cursive or a calligrapher
trying a new pen tip. Often they're used just for fun wordplay.
Pangrams exist in every language, though they may be more or less difficult to construct depending on
the language and its unique alphabet.
Perfect Pangrams
A perfect pangram is a sentence that uses each letter of the alphabet only one time. In English this
means that there are can only be 26 letters in the entire sentence. This is a very difficult thing to do, and
the only pangrams that work perfectly in English are forced to use abbreviations. For example:
When you allow for some letters to be used more than once, it's possible to come up with many more
pangrams in English. The most famous of all is:
The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog. - Michigan School Moderator
Finally, there's a famous long pangram that tells you exactly how many of each letter it uses:
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. - Lee Sallows