Contrary to popular belief, “Lorem ipsum” is not simply random text. It is actually over 2000 years old and it has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC. “Lorem ipsum” comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) written in 45 BC by Marcus Tullius Cicero. The first line of “Lorem ipsum”, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…”, can be read out of a line from section 1.10.32. This book was very popular during the Renaissance and it is a treatise on the theory of ethics. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.”Lorem ipsum” text became a standard when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.