Now, before you go "whaaaaaaaaaat??" believe me when I say that approximately 98% of people reading this will probably have the same reaction as you did. And, if you happen to be one of those 2%, feel free to leave comments and let the world know how knowledgable you are.

So what in the holy name of Paris Hilton is Lorem Ipsum?? If you've seen the text somewhere before, I congratulate you on your excellent memory. To see Lorem Ipsum, open Microsoft Powerpoint. Click on New... then click on the Design Templates tab. Preview any of the files listed and ay caramba! Lorem Ipsum!

"'Lorem ipsum' is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. It has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s. It has been popularised 'recently' with desktop publishing software and in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing 'lorem ipsum' passages."

Nice. This text has been used for more than 500 years. But whose idea was it? Which language?

"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."

That's a shocker. Anyone knows why we use this particular text?

"It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using 'lorem ipsum' is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'This here is content' or 'Osama Bin Laden wanted dead or alive', making it look like readable text and there also has been many examples what has happened if someone has forgotten to change the dummy text for the final copywrite text.
In Finland there was couple of years ago this one bookshop banner in public internet with 'Buying a book is as easy as hitting a child' text in it."

In a less technical manner, we use lorem ipsum to simulate 'text' in a template. As you know, people are interested in how a template looks like, but they also need to know how they look like with text in it. Lorem Ipsum text has the standard distribution of letters like most other texts, as opposed to just typing

lajfoijeamflkasjirdjelaijriejkoakt;oek;roae,rpaopo

or

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

or

This is content. This is content. This is content. This is content. This is content.

which are rather irritating and distracting. Interesting, no?

I think I will name my daughter Lorem. Such a sweetie. *smile*