It’s Greeking to Me

In the play Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius question Casca about the occasion on which Caesar reluctantly refused a crown offered him by Mark Antony. Casca is portrayed as a gruff, plain-speaking sort of man.

CASSIUS. 
Did Cicero say any thing?

CASCA. 
Ay, he spoke Greek.

CASSIUS. 
To what effect?

CASCA. 
Nay, an I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you i’ the face 
again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but for mine own part, it was Greek to me.

Like so many quotations from Shakespeare, “it’s Greek to me” has entered everyday speech. To say that something is “Greek to you” means that something written or spoken is incomprehensible, either because you lack the information to understand, or because the speaker or writer has failed to express the idea clearly.

A spin-off of Shakespeare’s quotation is the graphic design term greeking.



Greeking, from a typographic point of view, is the use of nonsense or dummy text, instead of the real body copy. This is done by designers to give the page an overall grey, or flat appearance, so as not to distract from the design layout. –Design: Talkboard

An example of greeking known to anyone who has ever browsed WordPress themes or looked through a computer manual is lorem ipsum. This block of nonsense Latin derives from an essay by–appropriately enough–Cicero.

Designers have good reason to use greeking. Comprehensible copy used to illustrate graphic design is distracting. A client will start reading the copy and be annoyed if it stops mid-sentence. The use of a greeking text ensures that attention remains focused on the design.

Messed-up Latin seems to be the most usual form of greeking, but other languages, including Greek, are used.

If you would like to generate your own passage of greeking, there’s a site for it. Your choices include Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Russian, Esperanto and Morse Code.