A billboard for 7News full of placeholder Latin text seemingly went live on Parramatta Road in Sydney. Somewhere an intern just woke up absolutely full of dread.
The billboard was spotted by a Twitter user based in Sydney on Thursday.
“Was this… intentional?” they wrote.
The text read “Lorem Ipsum Dolor” in famed dead language, Latin.
And while this could be a great marketing ploy to get people invested in the Classics again, methinks it was a classic bit of human error. Look, we’ve all been there. Just maybe not on a big ‘ol billboard.
“Lorem Ipsum Dolor” translates into “the pain itself” which is… ominous. But the second half of the phrase (“Sit Amet Consec Etur” isn’t really Latin. It’s just placeholder text or “dummy copy”. It’s where the headline or program details is usually supposed to go.
Honestly this very much feels like something I would do before having my morning coffee. Or maybe even my afternoon coffee. It’s very much giving 4.30pm on a Wednesday vibes.
Eagle-eyed Sydney folks and fellow Google Maps fans might be able to suss out exactly where the 7News billboard was — near Fort Street High School in Petersham.
Maybe this is a sign that we should try bringing back Latin for realsies though. It’d certainly spice up your classic news broadcasts. Perhaps we could test out one dead language per day, for fun! I’d personally like to hear all my news in Akkadian.
Or we could add a bit of mystery to news broadcasts instead. Make it a bit of a brain teaser, like broadcast Cluedo.
As put by one Twitter user in the comments, “we cross now to Firstname Lastname at Location”.
Every viewer gets three guesses at newsreader/location and what they’re reporting on. Honestly, I don’t know why no one’s hired me to run a TV station yet.
