Word Fun: Pangrams

Pangrams Section

Everybody knows one or two pangrams (sentences that use every letter of the alphabet). You've probably seen some of these before:

Some Well-Known Pangrams

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

This is undoubtedly the best known pangram. It contains all 26 letters of the alphabet (as it must do in order to be a pangram) and is 35 letters long. That means that is not particularly economical with 9 surplus letters. 

The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.

This is 33 letters in length. That can be beaten with the following, which has just 32 letters: 

Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.

Perfect Pangrams (exactly 26 letters) have been composed, but none makes good sense, being rather more a string of obscure words than a sentence. 

Listed below you will find a number of English pangrams arranged in descending order of length (the number of letters used is shown in red). No pangrams over twice the length of the alphabet (i.e. 52 letters) have been included. 

• (50) We promptly judged antique ivory buckles for the next prize. 
• (49) How razorback jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts. 
• (48) Sixty zippers were quickly picked from the woven jute bag. 
• (46) Crazy Fredrick bought many very exquisite opal jewels. 
• (36) Jump by vow of quick, lazy strength in Oxford. 
• (33) The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog. 
• (32) Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. 
• (30) How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. 
• (29) Sphinx of black quartz: judge my vow. 
• (29) Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim. 
• (28) Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex bud.