Do You Have A "test Phrase"?

[DorothyGale]

I was looking at some of my notebooks. I, too, often write the make and model of pen, what nib and the ink, if I know it. I, too, often write the first few lines of Jabberwocky.

I also write, If happy little bluebirds fly, above the clouds, then why oh why can't I?

[Cob]

Usually bits of Thomas Hood's wonderful poem November:

 

 

Cob

[Manalto]

Cob,

Americans and Brits have more in common than we may realize. Mr. Hood has pretty much described our entire winter here in NEW England.

 

James

[Cob]

Cob,

Americans and Brits have more in common than we may realize. Mr. Hood has pretty much described our entire winter here in NEW England.

 

James

I cannot say I am surprised, but I do think that Mr Hood could have made a splendid job of dreary January and soggy February too.

 

Cob

[PolarMoonman]

"God is Cruel, Sometimes He Makes You Live."

[Freddy]

8dayslater.............ooh i need your love babe guess you know it's true

hope you need my love babe just like i need you hold me ..love me..

hold me..love me Ain't got nothin' but love babe Eight Days A Week

 

Fred

I hope he rests in peace though the fella owes me forty bucks..............

............................................................................................................................

[Ted A]

Of late I have become enamored with a Bertolt Brecht quotation:

 

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.

[prighello]

One ring to rule them all....you know the rest : )

Edited January 15, 2015 by prighello

[Freddy]

There's a hold up in the Bronx..Brooklyn's broken out in fights..

There's a traffic jam in Harlem..That's backed up to Jackson Heights..

There's a scout troupe short a child..Kruschev's due at Idelwild..

Car 54 Where Are You?

 

Ooo.....Oooo..................................................................................................

 

Fred

we are entirely at your disposal and remain............................................

Yours faithfully.............................................................................................

[Freddy]

 

Fred

[Freddy]

 

Fred

[jmccarty3]

From the December 1966 issue of Mad magazine, with apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

 

On Houston's soil did millionaires

A garish Astrodome foresee:

A palace where the baseball fan,

'Mid climate hideous to man,

Might loll more pleasantly.

[Manalto]

From the December 1966 issue of Mad magazine, with apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

 

On Houston's soil did millionaires

A garish Astrodome foresee:

A palace where the baseball fan,

'Mid climate hideous to man,

Might loll more pleasantly.

 

Wonderful. That's a literary source I'm 100% on board with!

[ThirdeYe]

My test phrase is usually my signature, which tests almost all angles I could possibly use with the slight flourish I do at the end.

[Ponderius]

I typically go with the "quick brown fox", but one line I come back to again and again is "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." If I really want to give it a work out, I'll write out some snippets from The Declaration of Independence or Crime and Punishment. Of course there are plenty of signatures as well, though my handwriting is nothing to write home about. (Heh, see what I did there?)

[Sergio 46]

I start by writing the Greek alphabet very quickly, then my signature, and then some sentences or headlines from my favorite newspaper!

[Trebster]

"etaoin shrdlu"

 

because: hot type. Once learned never forgotten.

[jmccarty3]

"etaoin shrdlu"

 

because: hot type. Once learned never forgotten.

 

Ah, a brother in the fraternity of molten lead, tin, and antimony. It was an awesome piece of machinery.

[Trebster]

 

Ah, a brother in the fraternity of molten lead, tin, and antimony. It was an awesome piece of machinery.

 

The music of a Linotype in motion ... as quaint as my line gauge calibrated before Postscript. This is not to imply I worked as a Linotype operator, my work was strictly the highest quality type to the press on time.

 

That I would use actual ink in an actual pen is axiomatic

 

-30-

Edited July 24, 2015 by Morrighan

[RJRM]

'Here, b'y, is the issue of our plighted troth. Why I am the scribe and not you, God knows: and you have His secret.'

 

Dillon Wallace, preface to 'Lure of the Labrador Wild'