Use of the “quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” pangram in academic papers

• Published in: Journal of Electrical Systems and Information Technology Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 48 - 6
• Main Author: Teixeira da Silva, Jaime A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-12-2024; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Bioinformatics; Computer graphics; Digital Object Identifier; Dogs; Electrical Engineering; Electrical Machines and Networks; Engineering; Information Systems and Communication Service; Keyboards; Large language models; Letters to the Editor; Linguistics; Mechanical Engineering; Power Electronics; Scientific papers; Typography; United States > US; Large language models; Linguistics; Typography
• ISSN: 2314-7172; 2314-7172
• DOI: 10.1186/s43067-024-00171-z

In the English language, when a sentence contains all letters of the alphabet, such as “The/A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”, this is known as a pangram. Curiously, despite its odd meaning, this fox-dog pangram has found practical usage in some applications, mainly in text typography related to computer graphics, in linguistics, as a writing tutorial, or for testing computer keyboards. Even more curiously, it has been detected as a residual of template text in some academic papers. This unique linguistic curiosity was examined by screening Scopus and Web of Science, as well as Google Scholar from 2019–2023, to appreciate its practical use, as well as to assess whether there were any cases of residual template text, the main target of this exercise. In the latter case, this letter advocates for the removal of this residual text, in the form of a literary correction.