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Shortest English sentence using all the letters of the alphabet

August 25th, 2008

You already know the longest name, the longest English word, the hairiest family and many other stuff. But this time around I want to share with you guys, the shortest English sentence ever using all the letters of the alphabet. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet. A complete English sentence must have a subject and predicate. You cannot have a complete sentence without them. Thus coming up with the shortest English sentence that uses all the letters of the alphabet is not an easy task. By the way, a sentence that contains all letters of the alphabet is called Pangram. Such sentences are also called holalphabetic sentences. Further to clear up things, the shortest complete sentence using all the English alphabet is not “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” which is stated by WikiAnswers. The fact that it is not the shortest is because it is 35 letters whereas the shortest one is 31 letters only.

Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz

Next time you are talking to your english teacher make sure that you throw this one on him/her. A good one for class discussion.

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  1. James
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:08 | #1

    Thank you for the great information. so after all wikianswers was wrong what a shame, i am always referring to that site

  2. Locke
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:10 | #2

    challenging question but yet baffling answer

  3. Rick
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:11 | #3

    so did you come up with this sentence or you did some research?

  4. Hommi
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:12 | #4

    lol this is tuff question, people have hard time spelling their name.

  5. Hopes
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:12 | #5

    as an aussie would say.

    Good job mayte!!

  6. Priya
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:13 | #6

    And now you made my day, another good post, i will surely ask it my english teacher

  7. Ronald
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:17 | #7

    Maaaaaaa Miaaaaaaaa
    I am impressed by the article, well written, keep it up.

  8. Junkyard
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:19 | #8

    good one for a junkie like me.

  9. Tray
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:19 | #9

    wow that must have taken 100 people thinking of something that makes senses with all the letters .

    Im gonna trying doing one my self or is this only possible..b..

  10. Martin
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:20 | #10

    Some of these fun things should have been taught at school, it would have made learning a lot more fun.

  11. Randy
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:21 | #11

    YA WOW this is pretty nice im gonna wirte it on a paper and throw it on my teacher like you said.

  12. Julien
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:28 | #12

    Its easy after u have done 600 combination of each letters then other complicated stuff.

  13. Fredrick
    August 25th, 2008 at 22:29 | #13

    Its nice to see you teaching people about english grammar to many dumbass dont know these stuff.

  14. August 25th, 2008 at 22:33 | #14

    “F”AIL

  15. August 25th, 2008 at 22:36 | #15

    ok i lose i skipped the word “of” lol

  16. Jenny
    August 26th, 2008 at 00:15 | #16

    Such a waste of time

  17. August 26th, 2008 at 02:52 | #17

    good one

  18. Ben
    August 26th, 2008 at 06:39 | #18

    What about

    ‘Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow’

    with 29 letters?

  19. August 26th, 2008 at 08:32 | #19

    Love it ! Wikianswers and about.com both suck as a reference source :)

  20. Ethan
    August 26th, 2008 at 09:10 | #20

    Or, as also posted on wikianswers:
    The five boxing wizards jump quickly.

    Which also has 31 letters

  21. Stumblerz
    August 26th, 2008 at 09:22 | #21

    Just to answer few of the questions guys.

    1. There are many short sentences that uses all the letters of the alphabet but almost all of them are incomplete sentences.

    2. Please do not post hatred comments, this is a fun blog, I dont run politics nor do i care about it, you have right to say whatever you want but please stay within line.

    3. If you like the posts please subscribe for RSS feed for more of my posts and also share the article with friend and foes.

    Thats it..

    thanks

  22. foo
    August 26th, 2008 at 13:27 | #22

    regarding ‘Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow’, where are you hiding the letter f?

  23. foo
    August 26th, 2008 at 13:29 | #23

    for that matter, where in ‘Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz’ is the letter f hiding? the ph sound doesn’t count for typewriter testing.

  24. Stumblerz
    August 26th, 2008 at 22:01 | #24

    @foo
    I dont get you, what do you mean?
    u mean why there is no f in sphinx?
    if thats so, sphinx is written with a “ph”

    let me know if you have any other question

  25. Walshy
    August 26th, 2008 at 23:36 | #25

    english is a retarded language.

  26. Pointing
    August 26th, 2008 at 23:38 | #26

    Stumbler great post, i think it has went viral there were some talk about it at my school as well..

  27. Brett
    August 26th, 2008 at 23:39 | #27

    i am sure you can come up with more sentences like these ones, dont you think so?

  28. Sachin
    August 26th, 2008 at 23:41 | #28

    actually i asked my teacher and she couldnt answer it, she got pwned.

  29. karen
    August 26th, 2008 at 23:53 | #29

    wow your dumb

  30. SLxUT
    August 27th, 2008 at 02:59 | #30

    “foo on August 26, 2008 1:29 pm for that matter, where in ‘Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz’ is the letter f hiding? the ph sound doesn’t count for typewriter testing.”

    Is Foo trying to say that there is no letter f in the sentence? WOW!!! It would be “hidden” in the word that is between sphinx and quartz!!! Think before you make *** of yourself.

  31. August 27th, 2008 at 17:10 | #31

    hmm.. this removed my misconception and i cant wait to throw this challenge on my eng teacher.

  32. Russey
    August 27th, 2008 at 17:51 | #32

    tooooooooooo pervy this.

  33. GameSpotGuy
    August 27th, 2008 at 17:52 | #33

    Alrighty you opened my eyes, my english teacher never told me this cool stuff..

    way to go mate.

  34. Thoughts
    August 27th, 2008 at 17:53 | #34

    I am happy to learn the sentence to tease my friends but this is little bit pervert if you think of it, in fact it is lol.

  35. StumbleUponer
    August 27th, 2008 at 17:55 | #35

    I got to this blog from StumbleUpon, what is your stumbleupon account URL stumblerz? I would really love to add you in friends :)

  36. Potter
    August 27th, 2008 at 17:55 | #36

    Hardcore item for hardcore teacher

  37. Larry
    August 27th, 2008 at 17:56 | #37

    Ambiguous as it may sound this is PERVERT STUFF

  38. 6sixseex
    August 27th, 2008 at 17:57 | #38

    Ding Dong boyie this is some meatball for teasing teachers

  39. S3V3N
    August 27th, 2008 at 17:58 | #39

    And now I read this? What else you have in your pocket full of tricks? Anything else I have to say you impressed me with this post.

  40. Str187
    August 28th, 2008 at 16:41 | #40

    hey great one thanks
    i’m definetely going to throw this one on him =))

  41. dylan
    September 3rd, 2008 at 15:47 | #41

    the problem does not lie in wiki answers but you your to stuck up to maybe face that wiki answers is good and guess what if you posted that question then people would be informed then they can tell others and yo dont have to be a jerk about it

  42. Stumblerz
    September 3rd, 2008 at 20:51 | #42

    @dylan

    I was not being jerk about it dude. Wiki’s are all based on Wisdom of the crowds, so things like that happen nothing to cry about..

  43. m
    September 4th, 2008 at 15:29 | #43

    “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” used to be my first password on my Apple IIe.

    Cheers

  44. Kmariev
    September 4th, 2008 at 16:37 | #44

    Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.

  45. tony
    September 4th, 2008 at 17:28 | #45

    Ben on August 26, 2008 6:39 am

    What about

    ‘Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow’

    with 29 letters?

    -why is no one responding to this?

    it’s shorter than stumblerz-

  46. Mark
    September 4th, 2008 at 22:03 | #46

    @tony
    because it is not a complete sentence. The sentence has to make some sense, there are lots of them online but most of them are not complete sentence and make no sense. The one posted here actually makes sense when you read it and is something complete.

    There is a website related to this short sentences and only 2-3 make sense and are complete, others are just useless.

    To add, I do not think anyone is wrong here, neither WikiAnswers nor Stumblerz, it is all about how you look at it and what you consider as a sentence besides the actual complete sentence.

    to wrap up, I got here from StumbleUpon and my friend told me about the site as well, I think this page has been on Buzz of StumbleUpon for almost 2 weeks now. All i want to say this is a fun and educational post that is it, I do not get it why everyone fights through comments and tries to be negative or mean.

    Mark

  47. John
    September 5th, 2008 at 20:49 | #47

    I don’t understand how “Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow” is not a full sentence. Of course I may be wrong, but isn’t it a command? You are telling the Sphinx of black quartz to judge your vow…right? If I am wrong, then how does one tell the Sphinx to judge one’s vow?

    Fun post – I enjoyed reading all the responses.

  48. Stumblerz
    September 6th, 2008 at 01:30 | #48

    no need to argue guys!!

  49. higger
    September 6th, 2008 at 21:25 | #49

    yeah just whgat i want to do state that

    then be tapped to f*****g diagram why it is gramatacially correct

  50. tony
    September 8th, 2008 at 01:24 | #50

    hah, well, you’re wrong, mark. it is a complete sentence.

    and you’re pretty pathetic for not admitting that someone did you one better, stumblerz.

    “no need to argue guys!!”

    translates to:

    “i’m too proud and stubborn to admit that someone outdid me!”

    what, a, baby

Comment pages
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  1. August 26th, 2008 at 03:16 | #1