Do You Have A "test Phrase"?

[collectingfool]

I don't know when it started but I've noticed that I have a couple of stock lines or phrases I use whenever I have to write something and it doesn't matter what. If I'm testing a keyboard, making up data for a software test or testing a pen for the first time I always wind up writing the first few lines of "Good Times, Bad Times" by Led Zepplin. I may start with something else but I always end up writing it eventually. I know when I was much younger it used to be "It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly a shot rang out!". Schulz was like a god to me when I was a kid.

 

So, what are your go to test phrases?

 

 

[swanjun]

A line from The Wizard of Oz musical that I was in in 1986. "Once upon a time, I worked for the circus and I lived in Omaha."

[lightless]

Looking at the notebooks I've used for first writings with a new pen, it seems that I like to make swirls and sign my name to exhaustion.

[MisterBoll]

"Psalms of your hands
sung into the lateness
move a circuit on the white
and he can't feel a thing.

 

Gone always alone to all you are never
he climbs into your mouth
when the windows ring."

[AndrewC]

Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (I got tired of The quick brown fox...)

 

There is no taste to cross the tongue as bitter as regret.

 

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. (Something my pop used to always use...)

[lightless]

Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (I got tired of The quick brown fox...)

 

There is no taste to cross the tongue as bitter as regret.

 

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. (Something my pop used to always use...)

Hah! I like your replacement for the old testing phrase.

 

I like your father's phrase, and I find myself interested in its potential meanings - a political party in dire straits? A call to festive arms at a celebration? Defending a traveling group being attacked by miscreants?

[inkstainedruth]

I'll admit that I just tend to use "The quick brown fox..." which is the panagram that I first learned years ago when I was taking calligraphy in college.

Although recently, for more extensive workouts, I've had lyrics of songs running through my head. Which is in a way ironic, because when I hung around in the art department in high school I spent a lot of time playing around with calligraphy and typography and trying to do illustrations for song lyrics (which meant that I was writing them down all the time...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[sharonspens]

I usually write some version of my name, but I have also used "Now is the time . . . " Over the years I have become less than comfortable leaving my signature all over the place.

 

Sharon in Indiana

[pencils+pens]

My default is the old quick brown fox. My backup, for reasons I don't understand, is to write out the beginning of the Gettysburg Address, Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers ... and so on, or pieces from Alice's Restaurant.

 

 

 

I like your father's phrase, and I find myself interested in its potential meanings - a political party in dire straits?

 

from Wikipedia : "a phrase first proposed as a typing drill by instructor Charles E. Weller; its use is recounted in his book The Early History of the Typewriter, p. 21 (1918). Frank E. McGurrin, an expert on the early Remington typewriter, used it in demonstrating his touch typing abilities in January 1889. It has appeared in a number of typing books, often in the form "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."^"

[Mickey]

It varies, but this month it's this cheery little bit from Bill Blake. Usually just the first quatrain, sometimes the second as well, and very rarely, the whole megillah.

 

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

[Nashten]

One word I use the most is "Fantastic" and my sentences follow: "My writing as been fantastic as of late!" or "I have not written as much as I could have lately..."

 

And I will ramble on about the pen I am using, and the ink colour. 'Fantastic' will easily pop up 10 times on a page. Or the phrase "as of late" will pop up as many times too.

 

Before long, I've filled the page with: "My writing is this and that and blah blah blah. My pen is blah blah blah and this and that. The ink, I feel, is a fantastic colour for this and that and blah blah blah. However, I feel as if I could write more blah blah blah and this and that."

 

Truthfully, I get sick and tired of writing all that over and over again, every day. I cannot overcome myself to not do it. Even when I try, I do the same thing but on a different topic. And that secondary topic usually involves a character named Arriadanae...

Strange indeed...

[JessR45]

The good old "quick brown fox... " for me, although I have been writing these favorites from Blaise Pascal:

 

"The heart has its reasons which reason knows not"

 

"We are generally better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than those given to us by others"

 

... And lots of squiggles and swirls

[penrivers]

abcd, abcd,..this is a good fountain pen...abcd, abcd... this is a good fountain pen...abcd......

[Runnin_Ute]

Sometimes it is "a (the) quick brown fox...."

other times something else - sometimes just the make/model of the pen and the ink I put in it.

[Fabienne]

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

I will not talk in class.

etc.

[Houston]

I must thank this thread for making me google the word "pangrams". I have had several delightful giggles, and now know the difference between a perfect pangram and an imperfect one. Also, who knew there was such a thing as a "lipogram"!

 

And is it a coincidence that so many of them seem to have a slightly naughty connotation?

 

Faves from the last five minutes:

• Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
• Junk MTV quiz graced by fox whelps.
• Vexed nymphs go for quick waltz job.
• Glib jocks quiz nymph to vex dwarf.
• Blowzy red vixens fight for a quick jump.
• Boxers had zap of gay jock love, quit women.
• Why shouldn't a quixotic Kazakh vampire jog barefoot?

[RJR]

Two phrases that developed into a kind of non-musical Ohrwurms and serve well as both keyboard and FP tests:

 

1) "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country"; this courtesy of my middle school typing teacher, Mrs. Brown.

 

2) A bit of Poe that settled in mind in my formative years and never left me because I remember being absolutely astonished I could like poetry:

 

Once upon a midnight dreary,while I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore

 

RJR

 

[carlosviet]

Always this:

 

"En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor."

[PAKMAN]

If it's a flex pen the word "flex" is one of the best tests!

[Azura]

I use a hanzi chatacter " 舊" ...