It’s Latin — Sorta
One thing that no one questions is that Lerem Ipsum is based upon Latin. What’s more, that Latin dates back to 45 BCE in Cicero’s first book of De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (“On the Extremes of Good and Evil”).
There are a few passages taken from the book. But the main one — that includes “lorem ipsum” — is “qui dolorem ipsum.” According to Google Translate, this means “their distressing anguish and the very.”
When It Became Dummy Text
At one time, Lorem Ipsum was thought to be nonsense words. But in the late 1990s, Richard McClintock found the phrase in the 1914 edition of The Loeb Classical Library De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum.
In it, on page 35, the last word is “dolorem.” However, it is hyphenated. So “do-” is on page 35 and “lorem ipsum” is at the top of page 36. So he used this information to find the other parts of Lorem Ipsum.
First Try: 400 Years
At first, McClintock thought the use of Lorem Ipsum dated back over 400 years.
But this belief was based on the memory of seeing very old metal type samples. But when he looked again, he could not find them.
