Perhaps we could see the word “Cat” as short for Caterpillar (NYSE symbol CAT), a maker of distinctive farm tractors.
Don’t knock it, Lamborghini makes tractors …
Well, if we’re allowing names, I submit my ex-soviet agent urologist, *KGB Xanthus Q. Frolypcevjiwz MD
*
I don’t think anybody mentioned this above, but the reason for “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back” was because it also contained exactly the number of keystrokes on a standard typewriter between the conventional margins. They knew they could make it shorter, but they wanted to be able to test a machine for all letters and for spacing as well. But I can’t find a cite to confirm that.
My favorite is: “Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs,” which is not the shortest, but it is shorter than “lazy dog.”
Do you have a cite for this?
I doubt this very much. Typewriter pitches were elite with 12 characters per inch and pica with 10 characters per inch. That sentence is 52 characters if I add a period to it. That would only take up 5.2 inches even for pica leaving left and right margins of 1.65 inches which has got to be wider than standard. Dissertations had the widest margins I ever heard of and they were only 1.5 inches.
When I was a kid, we had a typewriter that typed 11 characters to the inch. I think they called it “picalite”, and a google search on that finds this page that says it’s a trademark of Brother Corporation.
Wish we still had it (or maybe my brother still does); I knew it was unusual at the time, but had no idea how unusual.
Just last week I worked “Jackdaws love my big sphynx of quartz” into conversation with someone where it was sufficiently related to what we were discussing that she didn’t appear to find it an odd utterance (not to recognize a pangram).
I would love to hear more details on that conversation… 
What’s the shortest sentence that uses all letters?
Technically, “I am” is the shortest sentence I can think of that uses all letters if you don’t count the period at the end. On the other hand, if you don’t count punctuation, most sentences contain all letters.
As a side note, pangrams are useful as language games, typing practice, and, as I learned a few years ago, in American Sign Language finger spelling final exam prep.
“Go!” Perfectly fine sentence, even to the strictest grammarians.
How about, “X.”—used as a verb, meaning to mark something with an “x”?
It’s got half the letters of “go”.
And, I’m going with a *period *instead of an exclamation mark. I guess, technically, they’re both a single character, but an exclamation mark is a line and a dot, whereas a period is just a dot—so much less ink is needed. X. That’s my shortest sentence. You’re going to have to pry it from my cold, dead hands!
Hmm, I like “Go;” but I think the sentence “X,” even if we allow it as a word, requires a direct object of the verb.
Having dealt with assorted parody-rule and legal-crapola in the furry fandom, I’m pretty sure I’ve actually used ‘uncopyrightable vixens’ in a sentence - though not a pangram.
Is there a pangram tool somewhere? Type in a few words and it shows what letters you still need? That’d make this easier for us lazy folks.
If we were to forsake the female vulpines: something about a Jehovah’s Witness undergoing a crisis of faith owing to reading-matter which he’d encountered, could sort of make “headline”-type sense, maybe:
Uncopyrightable mindfucks quiz, vex JW
If I count rightly, uses three letters twice (C,N,E); and two, three times (I,U).
John Mxyzptlk, QC, waved big furs.
I loved a recent email I was cc’d on from a city manager to his staff because he needed more info on a new subject brought to his attention in an email:
**?**Ok, I’m not grammatically inclined, but I see how it fails as one letter sentence if both a verb and subject are required (for the same reason 2 letter words like “go” should also fail, I suppose).
But, how about this for a complete two letter sentence: “I x.”?
It’s got a direct object and a transitive verb.
I believe “x” should be allowed as a word:
Merriam-Webster: Definition of x
x–ed also x’d or xed play \ˈekst\ x–ing or x’ing play \ˈek-siŋ
transitive verb
1: to mark with an x
2: to cancel or obliterate with a series of x’s —usually used with out <x-ed out the mistake>
Here’s an example: Bob and Tom work for a company that approves documents. If a document is approved, it’s marked with a check. If it’s not approved, it’s marked with an X.
Me: What’s your job at the company, Bob?
Bob: I check.
Me: How about you, Tom?
Tom: I x.