Pangrams and Lipograms

Pangrams and Lipograms Pangrams and Lipograms Pangrams and Lipograms By Maeve Maddox Ive long known that the sentence The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog contains every letter of the alphabet. What I didnt know is that such a sentence has a special name. Its a pangram. pangram from the Greek pan every, and gramma letter also called a holoalphabetic sentence; a sentence or (occas.) verse, containing every letter of the alphabet (OED). A perfect pangram would contain each letter only once and wouldnt make much sense. For example: Jink cwm, zag veldt, fob qursh pyx A lipogram is a sentence that is missing one or more letters. lipogram from a Greek word meaning to be lacking (no relation to liposuction in which the lipo is from a word for fat) The OED definition is a composition from which the writer rejects all words that contain a certain letter or letters. One Christmas I received a card from a friend with a droll sense of humor. It took me a while to figure it out. Although it is not a sentence, I think that it can count as a lipogram. Heres the message that was inside the card: a b c d e f g h i j k m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Hint: Whats another word for Christmas? See the fascinating Wikipedia List of pangrams Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:English Grammar 101: All You Need to KnowLatin Plural EndingsPrepositions to Die With