Say you have to write a 300 word article. You know how long 300 words is, sortof, but half the time when you try and write 300 word articles, you write 500 word articles, even though you repeatedly run word counts.

In order to give you a running and obvious estimate of the amount of words you need to type, the word processor gives you very faint gibberish words that you overwrite. The length and layout of the words is determined the language localization, to give a realistic approximation of the amount of space you'll need to fill.

The gibberish, generated by the computer, may also prove inspirational, in case writer's block hits at word 117.
-- mylodon, Jan 14 2008

Greeking Machine http://www.duckisla...om/greekmachine.asp
[angel, Jan 14 2008]

All you need to know about Greeking http://www.google.c...ch?hl=en&q=greeking
(plus some bits you don't want to know) [angel, Jan 14 2008]

Jabberwocky http://safari.oreil...205480/ch05lev1sec7
Quarkxpress utility [xenzag, Jan 14 2008]

That drives me nuts, [bigsleep]! I keep trying to read it as Latin, and it isn't, but only just. It's the etymologist's equivalent of an invisible whining mosquito!
-- pertinax, Jan 14 2008


This is called 'Greeking', despite usually being based on Latin. See (linky) to generate your own.
-- angel, Jan 14 2008


Variability notwithstanding, perchance infinitesimally minuscule lexical-magnitude perturbations, arithmetically magnified through statistically unjustifiable calculations, catapult stochastically amalgamated estimations somewhat waywardly? [19 words]

I say if folk use tiny words a lot your length guide will be a good deal too big. [19 words]
-- vincevincevince, Jan 14 2008


In Quarkxpress, which I use a lot, it's called Jabber. See link if I can find one.
-- xenzag, Jan 14 2008


Quark can generate Klingon gibberish!
-- xenzag, Jan 14 2008


It could be useful if it helped you plan paragraphs. You tell the computer you will have (a) an opening paragraph mentioning three things; (b) paragraph on thing number one, (c) paragraph on thing number two, (d) paragraph on thing number three, and (e) conclusion paragraph. The faint gibberish can be divided into these sections.

If you "go over" the quota for a paragraph, a surplus counter lights up to let you know to hold back in the next paragraph.
-- phundug, Jan 14 2008



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