Do You Have A "test Phrase"?

[Sasha Royale]

"The lazy dog awoke, and mauled the crazy, smartass fox into a bloody rag. Good dog !"

[flatline]

"The lazy dog awoke, and mauled the crazy, smartass fox into a bloody rag. Good dog !"

 

Now I'm sad.

 

--flatline

[Scriptorium Pens]

Almost always: The wizard quickly jinxed the gnomes before they vaporized. Then I usually write lines from Beowulf, Kubla Khan, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Lady of Shalott, or the Ring poem. And swirlies and squiggles and spirals.

[yossiantokolitz]

Yes. My name and "Today is tuseday" which in hebrew has some chalenging twists and turens.To my sorprise my brother uses the same frase so it might be genetic more than rational

Yossi

[dragonfly7]

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

[barleycorn]

ABCD....

abcde.....z 0123456789 ?!&

a quick blue (ink colour) fox jumps over the lazy brown dog.

Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf...

 

I also made up a double panagram:

Why pack my ice box with five liquor jugs, a dozen New Zealand lamb steaks or six quart jars of vegan dip?

 

I am undecided whether there a six quart-sized jars or the jars contain six quarts. That would be a ridiculous amount of vegan dip!

 

 

 

[Ted A]

I think I am about of an age to use Dylan Thomas':

 

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[Plume145]

I use lyrics a lot - what's playing if I have my ipod on, or if not whatever's stuck playing on a loop in my head, lol. Usually there is something.

 

If there isn't, I will often default to Flogging Molly's Seven Deadly Sins:

 

Sail away where no ball and chain
Can keep us from the roarin' waves
Together undivided but forever we'll be free
So sail away aboard our rig
The moon is full and so are we
We're seven drunken pirates
We're the seven deadly sins

 

It was probably one of their first songs I memorized (not deliberately lol, just by dint of playing it eleventy billion times hehe).

[GeneralSynopsis]

For a new pen I like to start with: "In the beginning was the word"

 

(despite having no interest in the work it comes from after this Neoplatonist opening).

 

.

Edited September 28, 2013 by GeneralSynopsis

[murraypaul]

Midway this way of life we're bound upon,

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

 

And

 

Here begins our tale. The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.

[CS388]

Nice thread.

The test phrase I use most of all has been covered already (Now is the winter of our discontent....).

I tend to use longer memorized passages of Shakespeare for longer tests.

And the words FLEX and FLEXY (repeatedly) to test flex.

 

If I want to test more spontaneously (without having to think) I'll just write the words I can hear or see as I'm testing the pen, or ink - words from the radio, a TV in the background, snatches of peoples' voices, a nearby book or newspaper, even the instructions on the side of a package etc etc - usually written in a nonsense/incoherent fashion.

 

And alot of squiggles, jagged lines, circles, stars, X's, ticks, a sketch - the page is a mess when I'm finished.

 

 

Thanks for posting the Lincoln letter, Vshin. It's many years since I've seen it. Powerful stuff.

 

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

 

- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Mrs. Bixby

[Ceilidh]

Saw this phrase once and really loved it -

 

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the lazy dog.

 

Hehehe...

I sometimes use Now is the time for the quick brown fox to come to the aid of all good men jumping over the lazy dog and their country. And other recombinations of the same two - making sense not required.

[The Moose]

When testing pens: "This is a test. This is only a test. Had this been an actual emergency, most likely you'd be screwed."

 

When testing people's printers: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Repeatedly.

[Vendome]

I don't have a test phrase as such, but as I'm a big Richard Burton fan and one of my favourite films is Where Eagles Dare, I'm going to opt for "Broadsword calling Danny Boy".

[meblamy]

In the month since I first saw this thread, I've hit on a new one, just to be different...

 

The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves. Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays...

 

(--"Thunder Road", Bruce Springsteen from Born to Run, 1975)

 

I can keep going on that one pretty much straight through!

 

[colrehogan]

My phrase is part of the old Emergency Broadcast System statement that went out on TV/radio when a test was being conducted.

 

This is a test. This station is conducting a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This was only a test.

 

I can never remember all of it, so thost three statements are good enough.

[Liamtyr]

Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene.
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

[Lyander0012]

I'm one of the weird ones that write anything that comes to mind when testing out a pen. Usually, it's bits of randomly-generated free verse poetry. I also use "The quick brown fox" from time to time, but not often enough to warrant anyone's calling it a standby phrase.

 

... Oh, wait, I just remembered that I have a booklet of quotes somewhere in my school bag. It'd probably be fun to try and use those from time to time, yeah?

[Video11]

When standing in the brick and mortar pen shop my phrase is "A discount might be nice a discount might be nice a discount might be nice." In other places I fall back to "The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain" or "Wolf zombies quickly spot the jinxed grave."

 

Regards,

 

Rick

[Geordielass]

I love these pangrams, most of them were new to me.

 

I'm afraid I tend to be boring and just start with the old "quick brown fox" line. By the way, I thought foxes were a reddish - or is it just me who always thinks that?

 

I have chronic fatigue syndrome and it has played merry hell with my ability to concentrate on reading more than about a page of text at a time, so instead I listen to a lot of audiobooks, hence I often just write down random stuff from whatever I'm listening to.

 

A quick question to all the Americans who said they write out all of those patriotic quotations, is that actually patriotism, or is it just that you had it dinned into your heads in school (or wherever)? I'm not trying to offend or upset anyone by asking that, I merely ask out of curiosity - I'm British, culturally speaking, we tend not to be big on patriotism.