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Boing Boing

“This page intentionally left blank” has a 500-year history

Ellsworth Toohey
Feb 01, 2026
∙ Paid

PHILIPIMAGE/shutterstock.com

You’ve seen it in exam booklets, government forms, and technical manuals: a page that says “This page intentionally left blank.” But the moment those words appear, the page is no longer blank. It’s a small paradox, like a Cretan declaring all Cretans to be liars.

Wikipedia has an entire article on this, and the explanations ar…

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