Amaranath sasesusos Oronoco initiation secedes Uruguay Philadelphia

My cat, Joyce, striking a pose with my old Underwood

The seven word sentence above was the first one typed on every newly produced typewriter to ensure proper alignment after manufacture.

How does it work? ‘Amaranath,’ the misspelled name of an imaginary flower, checks the alignment of the vowel ‘a’ between a number of common consonants. ‘Oronoco’ checks the ‘o’ key, while ‘secedes,’ ‘initiation’ and ‘Uruguay’ check three vowels that are among the most commonly used of all letters, ‘e,’ ‘i,’ and ‘u.’ ‘Sasesusos’ not only compares four of the five vowels in the same word against the baseline of the letter ‘s,’ but also ‘includes several of the most common letter combinations in twentieth-century business English.’ ‘Philadelphia’ checks the horizontal alignment of ‘i’ and ‘l,’ the narrowest letters on the keyboard.

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Via PfRC