Pangrams 
| No. of Players: | 1+ |
| Type of Game: | written |
| What you need: | pen and paper |
Goal
To write a sentence containing every letter of the alphabet.
How to play
A pangram is a piece of writing that contains all the letters of the alphabet. For instance, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." In this game, players challenge themselves or others to write pangramic (or 'holoalphabetic') sentences. The winner is the player who uses the fewest number of repeated letters.
Alternatively, players can compete to find the shortest pangramic passage in a newspaper or magazine within a given amount of time. The player who finds the shortest passage, by letter count, is declared the winner.
Examples
The five boxing wizards jump quickly. (31 letters)
Jack bought a lumpy index of TV quiz answers. (36)
Amazingly, discotheques provide few jukeboxes. (40)
Jinxed zombies painfully watch a quick graveyard. (42)
Waxy moustached Jacques had an evil big foot zookeeper. (46)
Rick expects to be waving off mosquitoes on a hazy July day. (48)
A rival big band quickly swiped that exact jazz melody from Ian. (52)
Mr. Pibb enjoys showing folks quixotic magazine advertisements. (54)
Bruce was crazy about playing for Max, who never required jokes. (54)
Did you know?
Some people are able to roll up frying pans in their hands as easy as paper maps. According to Guinness World Records, the title for the most rolled up frying pans goes to Steven Weiner of Long Island, NY. On January 10, 2015, this strongman rolled up 14 frying pans in one minute. The female champ is Kathleen Krausse of Germany who rolled up an equally impressive 7.
But we imagine both would struggle with the world's largest frying pan. It was created by Edirne Belediyesi of Turkey and is an incredible 2 feet, 7.5 inches high and 22 feet, 1.5 inches in diameter. By the way, this 2 ton skillet was actually used on May 12, 2018 to cook 1,323 pounds of calf liver in 666 gallons of oil using 551 pounds of flour and 3 tons of coal.
Did you know?
Your family may call her grandma, granny, or gram. But these nicknames are relatively recent, historically speaking. The full word 'grandmother' actually dates back to 1375–1425. It derives from the Old English ealde mōdor, literally meaning 'old mother.'
The origin of 'great-grandmother' (þridde mōdor, or 'third mother') is slightly more recent. It was first recorded around 1520–30. Incidently, the prefix grand- is used to refer to a person who is one generation removed, and the prefix great- indicates yet another generation.
Following this convention, 'great-great-grandmother' would be fēowerþe mōdor (fourth mother) and great-great-great-grandmother would be fīfte mōdor (fifth mother). Given that the average person lived just 35 years in the Early Middle Ages when Old English was spoken, few people back then would have had use for these terms. Other than speaking of mothers who were long since gone, of course.
However, that is not true today. There have been a few cases of single families with six generations alive at the same time. And even one family with seven. This occurred with the birth of Christopher John Bollig on January 21, 1989, which made Augusta Bunge Pagel a very-much-alive sixte mōdor – that is, a great-great-great-great-grandmother!
According to Guinness World Records, Augusta was born on October 13, 1879 in Tonawanda, New York. This made her 109 years, 3 months, and 8 days old at the time. Followed by her daughter Ella Sabin (aged 89), her granddaughter Anna Wendlandt (70), her great-granddaughter Betty Wolter (52), her great-great-granddaughter Debra Bollig (33), her great-great-great-granddaughter Lori Bollig (15), and her great-great-great-great-grandson Christopher.
Augusta died on May 18, 1989 in Medford, Wisconsin – no doubt quite proud of her amazing family!
(In case you're wondering, the images in the title of this word game form a rebus puzzle: PAN + GRAMS = PANGRAMS)
