"Portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume" ("Take this old whisky to the blond judge who is smoking") is a

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in ...

pangram A pangram or holoalphabetic sentence is a sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding. Origins The ...

, that is, a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet (not including

accents Accent may refer to: Speech and language * Accent (sociolinguistics), way of pronunciation particular to a speaker or group of speakers * Accent (phonetics), prominence given to a particular syllable in a word, or a word in a phrase ** Pitch acc ...

nor

ligatures Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...

). It is also an

alexandrine Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French ''Roma ...

. The pangram contains 37 letters and does not repeat any

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced ...

s. Though not the oldest or shortest pangram, it is the best known. It is often used by people learning to type, is familiar to many French speakers, and is a standard piece of text to test typography and printing equipment, sometimes used as a placeholder. Some

firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide ...

in printers produced for the French market has the pangram stored in its internal code.. Sometimes an expanded version, "au juge blond qui fume ''la pipe''", which covers all lower-case letters, is used. The pangram became popular after being published in Albert Navarre's ''Manuel d’organisation du bureau'' in 1924. The first widespread commercial publication of the pangram has been attributed to the French-language comic series ''

Journal de Mickey ''Le Journal de Mickey'' is a French weekly comics magazine established in 1934, featuring Disney comics from France and around the world. The magazine is currently published by Unique Heritage Media. It is centered on the adventures of Mickey Mou ...

''. The author of the phrase has sometimes been claimed to be the novelist and essayist

Georges Perec Georges Perec (; 7 March 1936 – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early in the Second World War and his mother was killed in the Holo ...

, but this is not believed to be correct. In the absence of certainty, a cross-checking of clues allowed the Canadian pangram expert Jean Fontaine to think that it was created between 1910 and 1924 and that the author could be the champion typist

Charles Triouleyre Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...

. The writer has praised the pangram as a "superb sentence" and a "model of the genre".. An alternative used to test communication circuits (such as

radioteletype Radioteletype (RTTY) is a telecommunications system consisting originally of two or more electromechanical teleprinters in different locations connected by radio rather than a wired link. Radioteletype evolved from earlier landline teleprinter ...

) is "Voyez le brick géant que j'examine près du wharf" ("Look at the giant brig I'm examining next to the wharf").

Notes

References

{{reflist French words and phrases Pangrams Filler text Typography