Talk:Longest word in English/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Early comments

I changed some of the wording on the Pneumonoultramicrosconiosis section, see the Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis] talk page for an explanation of why.

Not sure about the authenticity of these, but in "The Top Ten Of Everything" by Russell Ash (admittedly a somewhat dubious source) the words aqueosalinocalcalinosetaceoaluminosocupreovitriolic and osseocarnisanguinioviscericartilaginonervomedullary are second and third after Acetylseryl.....etc. Anybody ever heard these words? The first was used by some writer or other to describe the Spa waters at bath, the second is an adjective to describe the human body. Both have appeared in print (not solely as an exercise in creating long words) which is I believe the criteria Ash used. Can anyone confirm or deny? The spellings may be incorrect- it's from a ten year old memory. - zckls04 00:05, 13 May 2005 (GMT - 8)

Just a note, I read somewhere before that "uncopyrightable" is the longest word to not repeat a letter. I'm uncertain of this, though. - HoCkEy_PUCK 22:43, 3 Oct 2005 (GMT - 5)

"The longest hypothetically legal Scrabble word (hypothetical because it exceeds 15 letters, the width of a Scrabble board) in North American play is ethylenediaminetetraacetates (28 letters). It is the plural of a word found in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition, which was the dictionary of reference in North American Scrabble play for base words of at least 10 letters, and their inflections of at least 10 letters, until June 16, 2003."

But such a word couldn't be done, even on a 28-letter board as each player can only have 7 tiles at a time. So what is this thing actually saying? [maestro]

Sure it could. If you add two tiles from your rack to a seven-letter word on the board, you've made a legal nine-letter Scrabble word, and you score for all nine letters. - Nunh-huh 03:08, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What about Ornicopytheobibliopsycho­crystarroscioaero­genethliometeoro­austrohiero­anothropoichthyopyrosiderochpnomyoalectryoophio­botanopegohydrorhabdocritho­aleuroalphitohalo­molybdoclerobeloaxinocoscino­dactyliogeolithonpesso­psephrocato­ptrotephraoneiro­choonychodactylo­arithstichooxogeloscogastro­gyrocerobletonooenoscapulinaniac? Quote from Ananova: It was apparently used by medieval scribes to refer to someone who practices divination or forecasting by means of phenomena, interpretation of acts or various other manifestations.

And it's an English word - albeit admittedly medieval - and clocks in at 310 letters...

It looks to me like someone just mashed together a bunch of partial Latin words for methods of telling the future, and declared it an English word. I think a scribe would have used the specific word for the type of activity, to save his fingers. --Carnildo 08:05, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

But it's still a word. Sorta. -Litefantastic 13:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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Removed from the typewriter words section: "proficiently" does not alternate hands because "l" and "y" both are typed with the right.

I would never type the "y" with my right hand for that word! I think "proficiently" qualifies. TMott 16:21, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Any word could qualify if you type non-standardly enough. For touch typing with "conventional hand placement" (as the article says), "y" is always typed with the right hand. We have to restrict ourselves somehow to keep this managable. EldKatt (Talk) 17:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

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Put your text for the new page here. Taumatawha-katangihanga-koauauotamate-aturipuka-kapikimaun-gahoronukup-okaiwhenuak-itanatahu (85 letters) which is a hill in New Zealand.

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In terms of general words (like not place or scientific names), what about: floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters), which is longer than the 28 letter word listed? I don't know whether this counts, but it's in the Office XP spell checking dictionary. Enochlau 13:42, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC) Enochlau

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I see the subject page has been protected, presumably to stop recent vandalism from 24.64.223.205. Why not just ban him instead (see Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress)? That way the defacings stop and real contributors can improve the article. I was going to remove the line breaks from that really really long word -- browsers wrap this anyway so we end up with bad like breaks -- but since it's protected now, somebody gets to do it for me. -- Merphant

Ok, I guess I was wrong, my browser won't wrap it. It should, though. -- Merphant

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The title of this page is a bit wordy. I suggest Longest word in English. This shorter term is also more likely to be searched for. --mav

I disagree, in keeping with the theme, I suggest exremely long link removed --Dante Alighieri 00:17 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)

Yikes! --mav

And, furthermore, I suggest someone put up a phonetic spelling of the above as well as a link to a sound file of someone actually saying the word. ;) --Dante Alighieri 00:21 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)

moved. --mav

Late now, but wouldn't Longest English word be even better? -Martin

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I note the OED (2nd Ed.) lists "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" as an adjective with several examples, not only as a noun as the article suggests. --Imran 23:04 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC).

The longest place name in the US is nto teh one written, i will change it tommrow, unless someoen else does. - fozny

"There is some debate as to whether or not a place name is a legitimate word." There is?? --Lukobe

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Removed:

The full name of Los Angeles is El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Little Portion [River]). It is abbreviated to LA: 3.6% of its full length.

The Poetic name for Bangkok is Krung thep mahanakhon bovorn ratanakosin mahintharayutthaya mahadilok pop noparatratchathani burirom udomratchanivetma hasathan amornpiman avatarnsa thit sakkathattiyavisnukarmprasit.

I removed them because although interesting trivia, neither one is the longest word in English. Maybe this belongs in longest place name article.

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The "technical terms" section falls far short of the well-written previous sections. That long word is "official" according to whom? Nobody uses that word, or has ever used that word, so why should it be counted?

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Unfortunately on Firebird the action of these long words serves to act like a page-widening thingy. What can be done to get the full names of some of these things in? I tried some things, but failed. Dysprosia 04:18, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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I think mention should be made that while places like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and Gorsafawddacha'idraigodanheddogleddollônpenrhynareurdraethceredigion are in English speaking countries (thus part of the article) they are in fact both in the Welsh language. I was going to question why they needed to be here at all but that's just being over pedantic. -- Graham  :) | Talk 03:10, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

But it already says that. It is questionable whether any of the above are English words, being Maori, Welsh, and native American words respectively. Saul Taylor 01:20, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Oh yeah, really must stop adding these notes at 3am when I really need to go to bed... -- Graham  :) | Talk 18:20, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Clearly, Maori, Welsh, and native American words are NOT English, and it is therefore insulting to the native speakers of these languages to include them as if they were. Phil C

English accumulates a lot of words from other languages, for example camouflage (from French). I'm not saying these place names are nearly as common, but to exclude them (or to be offended by their inclusion) just because they have non-English origins is a little rash. - Plutor 18:16, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Article title?

To my ears, Longest English word sounds less awkward than Longest word in English. Objections? --Delirium 01:03, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I object. There are "English words" which are not "in English". --Phil | Talk 10:33, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

But isn't this whole encyclopedia "in English"? anthony (see warning) 11:13, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I prefer the current title - "English" in "longest English word" could mean "of the country England" as well as "of the English language" - whereas "English" in "longest word in English" could only mean the language - DavidWBrooks 12:58, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Soft hyphens

More soft hyphens are desperately needed, even though someone has managed heroically with those huge chemical words. I have done my best with the McDonalds slogan, but some of the others…I can't see where the syllables fall. The appropriate HTML entity is ­. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 13:59, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

joke: similes???

I rolled back the joke about a "mile" being in the middle of the word "smiles" ... somebody had changed it to "similes"?!? Aside from the fact that I've never heard that version, it ruins the (admittedly feeble) joke, because the word "mile" is not pronounced in the middle of "sim-ill-ee". - DavidWBrooks 01:41, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What about superprecompartmentalizationable (32 letters)? Samohyl Jan 15:16, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Why is antidisestablishmentarianism in there when antidisestablishmentarianists is clearly one letter longer and thus just as long as floccinaucinihilipilification? What about "a word from our sponsors"? Their sponsors have seemed to have found a pretty long word. Daniel 21:52, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Antidisestablishmentarianism is better-known. --Carnildo 06:00, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Strengths longest word?

"Strengths" isn't the longest English word: "screeched" is the same length. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daveincambridge (talk • contribs) 18:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Borschtchs (plural of borscht) is longer, surely? Proto 15:14, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Is it sufficiently English for inclusion? --Carnildo 17:50, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Is it even a word in English? Borscht is used as both singular and plural, like fish or sheep. "He served three kinds of borscht for lunch" not "He served three borschts for lunch" (or borschtchs) - DavidWBrooks 17:54, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Three kinds of borscht" wouldn't warrant the plural form, though. --brian0918™ 18:47, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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I searched Google for Bababadal' and I was corrected into Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk. Is this correct? - and if you agree, please change it. 203.26.206.129 07:21, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sesquipedalianism

The article used to read (before I removed it):

Although only seventeen letters long, sesquipedalianism deserves a mention. It was used as a nonce word by the Roman author Horace, in his work "Ars Poetica" (The Art of Poetry). The quote is as follows: "Proicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba," which means, "He throws aside his paint pots and his words that are a foot and a half long". The word sesquipedalianism means "the practice of using words one and a half feet long".

This contradicts itself: It says the word was used by Horace, but then it says "the quote" (seemingly alluding his use of the word) is actually in Latin and doesn't contain the word, not even its Latin equivalent. In other words, the paragraph doesn't establish why the word "deserves a mention". — Timwi 01:31, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It seems to establish it quite nicely: "sesquipedalianism" is a long word that describes the practice of using long words. It's a real English word, and is derived from the Latin phrase "sesquipedalia verba": words a foot and a half long. The Oxford English Dictionary cites Horace as being the first to use "sesquipedalia". The precise citation, from the 1971 Compact Edition:

A. adj. 1. Of words and expressions (after Horace's sesquipedalia verba 'words a foot and a half long', A. P. 97): of many syllables.

Carnildo 02:07, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. Horace's word merely gives rise to English sesquipedalian, which I suppose could be mentioned, but isn't even particularly long. Sesquipedalianism is just adding a suffix; the section "Constructions" already describes how to derive such constructions, using antidisestablishmentarianism as an example. By that token, I could argue that psuedoantisesquipedalianistically "deserves a mention", but it doesn't because pseudoantidisestablishmentarianistically is already mentioned and longer. — Timwi 11:24, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OED again:

Hence, Se·squipeda·lianism, style characterized by the use of long words; lengthiness

The entry also has three citations of the use of "sesquipedalianism" in literature. So, it's a long word, it's used to describe long words, and it's used in actual English-language writing. It's at least as well-grounded as the other words in the article. --Carnildo 20:53, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• • • June 17, 2005: There seems to be some internal graffiti on this page, that doesn't show up in the edit area. Has the page been hacked? or was this done internally? I'm hoping the wiki-staff can fix this.

It is possible to make edit notes (e.g., "don't list XXX here" or something like that) that don't show up - that's pretty common Can you be more specific? I didn't see anything obviously graffiti-ish. - DavidWBrooks 17:15, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't see anything either. However, I have long noticed that on my computer the "&shy ;"s that appear throughout many of the words (which I suspect is supposed to look like a dash or something), appears as a ú (thats a "u" with an acute accent over it, in case that looks different to other people), and makes everything after it larger. I'll tell you it looks damn awful, but I assume it looks fine to just about everyone else or someone would have changed it long ago. You by any chance use a Mac? -R. fiend 17:32, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

An "­" is a soft hyphen: that is, it's an indication that the web browser can break the word there for wrapping purposes, inserting a hyphen. For web browsers that don't support soft hyphens, it should show up as a literal ­ in the displayed text. --Carnildo 18:54, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I reckon it should, but for me it don't. And I'll tell ya it looks like crap. Is there a way to use a regular character for the same purpose (like an old fashioned dash)? I doubt I'm the only one with this problem. When I first read this page it took me a little while to figure out what Lipúsmackinúthirstúquenchinúacetastinúmotivatinúgoodúbuzzinúadúnauseam meant. -R. fiend 19:44, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Once Wikipedia switches over to Unicode, it'll be possible to replace the HTML entity with the Unicode equivalent, but I don't think that will change anything. A simple hyphen will show up for everyone, and hard-wrapping suitable for an 800x600 display with large fonts will look damned silly on an Apple 30" flat-panel. --Carnildo 20:43, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Off topic

It seems this page is getting a bit off topic, with all the jokes and the long words typed with special specifications on the keyboard. I think the keyboard ones should be moved to the QWERTY article since they are much more about the layout of that particular keyboard than they are about the "longest word in English" which they clearly have no real claim to. Likewise the jokes have gotten a bit childish. -R. fiend 2 July 2005 12:28 (UTC)

Firstly, I certainly agree with you on the jokes. The "smiles" joke might deserve to be there (it's well known, it's very much connected with the concept of "the longest word"), and sesquipedalian has such charm that I certainly like seeing it here. But on avarage, I don't think we need to document every single playground joke someone finds interesting.

The one defence I have for the keyboard-specific ones is that QWERTY is by far the most common keyboard layout. I'd speculate the majority of readers don't even know there are others. A Dvořak-specific long word, for instance, should certainly be moved, but QWERTY is kind of a standard.

Still, I don't think this argument weighs very heavily compared to the fact that it is layout-specific. I'm overall positive to a move. --EldKatt 2 July 2005 13:16 (UTC)

Hold on there! There are all kinds of restrictions you can place on the set of allowable words: place names, medical terms, palindromes, etc. A keyboard layout is fair game, I say. Indeed, isn't a keyboard a lot(!) more familiar to most people than obscure hydrocarbon compounds or Nepalese villages?

Just in case you didn't know

Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 <-- one of the most bizarre Wikipedia articles. Also a very long word. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 18:57, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Logology?

logology redirects here. Why? Does it mean the study of this? Does it mean the same thing? Could somebody please clarify this and perhaps integrate such a thing into this article? --Fastfission 15:40, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Logology is the scientific study of words [1]. A pretty fuzzy concept; I can't really understand in what context one would use it. Anyway, it appears that the original page consisted of one of the long words mentioned in this article (which I suppose is related to logology), and somebody made a redirect. Although I doubt there will be an article on the subject of logology any time soon, the redirect shouldn't be there. EldKatt (Talk) 16:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I've changed it from a redirect into a very short article. Maybe it should just be a wiktionary entry. - DavidWBrooks 16:41, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Looks good. Confining it to Wiktionary is quite possible, but there's the chance that the Wikipedia article can be improved. That's a very slim chance, though, I guess, so I'm positive to it. By the way, do you know/have any sources mentioning more exactly what it means, and in what context it is used? Is it about letter patterns in the same sense that phonology is about sound patterns? EldKatt (Talk) 17:31, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I googled and found several listings of Dmitri Borgmann books with the word, as well as a reference by Richard Lederer to Borgmann's having adopted the word to its recreational emphasis. - DavidWBrooks 01:20, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

railway stations

As of 2005, the longest genuine station name in the UK (i.e. one not specifically designed to beat a record) is the newly-reopened Rhoose station. While not actually being a single word, to emphasise its proximity to the local airport (around 3 miles), it was renamed Rhoose Cardiff International Airport — 33 letters in all.

Seems we've come rather a long way from the subject of the article here. This is supposed to be Longest word in English, not Longest genuine station name in the UK. Flapdragon 17:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I concur, as it doesn't come close to being a "long word" in any category. EldKatt (Talk) 19:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, reverted it. Flapdragon 20:27, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Prefixes?

Dunno if it's been said before, or I missed something incredibly obvious, but by adding the prefix of psuedo to Antidisestablishmentarianism would lengthen it. Are prefixes not considered to be valid ways of extending a word? Is it simply a matter of uncertainty whether psuedoantidisestablishmentarianism is a valid word (It is, I'm fairly sure)? 203.51.102.148 (talk) 15:03, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis is longer...

encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis is longer than pseudopseudohypothyroidism. They are both tecnical terms. The latter is a sugery treatment for Moyamoya disease. Still not the longest word, but interesting none the less because it is actually used in the medical world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.35.220.29 (talk) 15:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Hippopotomonstrosesquipp [sic] edalia

I was wondering if it'd be appropriate to include hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia on this page. According to phobialist.com, it's the fear of long words. :) --Patteroast 00:09, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

No, because the "hippopotomonstro" stuff is tacked on just to make it a longer word. A more accurate name for the fear would be "sesquippedaliophobia".

inserting this for the record: it shd be sesquipedaliophobia, (sesqui+ped+..., single "p") ~~

Well, perhaps sesquippedaliophobia should be mentioned on its own merit, being related to the topid at hand, with a mention that it beyond it's already ironic meaning a more contrived version exists. I dunno. Just throwing it out there. --Patteroast 09:04, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Doesn't sesquippedaliophobia mean "fear of words a foot and a half long"? Shouldn't a more scientific term be used? Mike Storm 15:34, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think Hippomonstro- deserves a mention, it may be tacked on (when and by whom, incidentally)but it's still no more uncommon than sesquipedalia on it's own (I encountered the former first). Datepalm17 10:18, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

We certainly should mention the correct spelling of this. I'm doing it now. -- Smjg 15:42, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

If that's really the right word for it, the psychologist who made it up was a real sadist. "You have hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia!" "ACK!" CrossEyed7 14:45, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

hippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism is mentioned but then it's not categorised as a long word. Satisfied now?Kayau (talk) 04:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

         no.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.103.222.69 (talk) 03:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC) 

Vote

Oh dear, an edit war seems to be on its way. Time to come to a consensus. Should "hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian" be mentioned in the article?

I propose to do a vote count on 31 August 2005. Cast your votes now!

• Yes. It's of especial interest to the world of hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian words. People looking for a good name for words of this kind would be interested to come across this autological term. It doesn't really matter IMO whether it's a real word or not (many of the words already on this page aren't) or how well-known or obscure it already is. -- Smjg 13:30, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

• No - I can't find actual use of this word anywhere. The article already discusses making new, longer words by tacking on prefixes and suffixes; this is just a not-very-clever, made-up example. - DavidWBrooks 14:31, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Did you try Google? -- Smjg 07:46, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I did try Google, and didn't found actual use either. I found a lot of websites that talk about the word, but none that use the word itself as a word. There's a big difference. EldKatt (Talk) 12:00, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

These all show up in the first five pages of Google results at the mo:

• http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/archives/0597 (both defines the word and later uses it)
• http://www.automotiveforums.com/t127499.html
• http://www.watzmann.net/scg/faq-7.html

Also try searching for the phrase "a hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian word". -- Smjg 00:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• No. It's already described in the article how long words can be made with morpheme stacking, and there are sufficient examples. If the argumentation in favour of mentioning the word is fully realised, there's no limit to the amount words we could make up (or find mentioned in a blog somewhere) and list here. There's a sensible way of limiting it, though: deciding only to include words that are well-known or somehow significant (such as all or nearly all of the words listed here, whether or not they are 'real words', whatever is meant by that). Judging by everything I've been able to find, hippotomonstrosesquipedalian is neither well-known nor significant. EldKatt (Talk) 15:57, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

• No. It has no meaning apart from that of the well-attested word "sesquipedalian", and is not in common use. --Carnildo 18:08, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course it isn't, because formation of extremely long words is a relatively esoteric topic. Moreover, neither is "Lip­smackin­thirst­quenchin­acetastin­motivatin­good­buzzin­cool­talkin­high­walkin­fast­livin­ever­givin­cool­fizzin", unless there's some limited part of the world where it's still seen/heard regularly. And whoever said synonyms should be omitted from the list? -- Smjg 07:46, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

See my reply above dated the same as this one. I might go as far as to say this word is not in use at all, as I have explained. "Lip­smackin­thirst­quenchin­acetastin­motivatin­good­buzzin­cool­talkin­high­walkin­fast­livin­ever­givincoolfizzin" was used in an advertisement. EldKatt (Talk) 12:00, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I heard this comment the first time. Exactly - was used in an advertisement. By the looks of it, before a fair number of people around here were born. And still nobody's told me where in the world it was used. -- Smjg 00:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

"Sesquipedalian" (or at least the form from which it derives, Latin "sesquipedalia") has been used as a description of long words. "Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian" hasn't been used at all, only talked about. This is of course based on the sources I found via Google, but I will trust these until someone points to sources that prove the opposite. EldKatt (Talk) 12:00, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear, it looks like there isn't much of a consensus. Still, we can keep this referendum in case of a few late votes....

Actually, I think there was only one "yes" - from Smjg; it looks like more because he/she responded to several no votes. However, there were only three "no" votes, including mine, so you're correct that the voting isn't exactly overwhelming. - DavidWBrooks 18:36, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

• No - "hippo"? "monstro"? sigh. Stick to real words. I can see "sesquipedalian" included but the longer version is just making fun of itself. - Tεxτurε 18:35, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

• No Made up word, but the meme has spread around the web

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is listed in Webster's NM Dictionary, and therefore should be included in the article...

See: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

That's a "preview version" of Lexico Publishing Group, LLC's dictionary. The only dictionary they put out is dictionary.com, so I'd hardly consider them experts on the English language. Try again when the OED picks it up. --Carnildo 03:51, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

The "Hippo" part means horse. see {{Hippopotamus}}. I think it was just tacked on because it makes it bigger, and people assume its something to do with the size of the animal. Kaldosh 02:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I have found several sorces proving hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia as a word: http://psychology.about.com/sitesearch.htm?terms=hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia&SUName=psychology&TopNode=11801&type=1 http://www.depression-guide.com/phobia/hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.html

1: hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of long words , despite the understanding by the phobic individual and reassurance by others that there is no danger.
2: hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: a strong fear of, dislike of, or aversion to long words. http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/problem_detail.asp?SDID=204:1595

It is a real psychological condition. Therefore, if it cannot be considered a word then words such as epilepsy or cancer would also have to be ruled out as words. 01:30, 18 Jan 2008 (UTC)

About.com isn't a reference any more than wikipedia is - further, that link doesn't work. The other two are fill-in-the-blank pages that sell self-help material around made-up terms obtained through a search engine. (In other words, scams). Nice try. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• Yes It's not a made up word, it is in real dictionaries. the "hippomonstroso-" part is not just "tacked on". Ref Mrs. Byrnes Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous words, Originally published in 1976 (which discounts the meme theory). I have this dictionary and can provide scans of the pages if requested. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Byrnes-Dictionary-Unusual-Obscure-Preposterous/dp/0806504986 dunerat (talk) 06:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

• Yes according to Chidren's book wicked words.

Kayau (talk) 04:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Yes you count Methionylthreonylthreonyl...isoleucine as the #1 longest word, but it has another name too: Titan-- five letters!! (according to wikipedia), so you can't say that you can't count hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia because it is unnessarily long, when the #1 word has 189,814 more letters than titan, it's commonly used name!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.103.222.69 (talk) 03:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Vowels in "rhythms" and "syzygy"

I think there are vowels in the words "rhythms" and "syzygy". Unlike pretty much every other language in the world, English maps the same written glyph onto many spoken phonemes, depending on the circumstances. Thus, the "y" in "rhythms" or "syzygy" is pronounced as the vowel /i/, not as the consonant /j/. — JIP | Talk 06:21, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Lol, the emphasis is on the written word not the pronunciation. for purposes of grammar what u said is true, but let's keep it simple and strictly adhere to the "a,e,i,o,u" vowel list. These words therefore don't have them. --Idleguy 06:56, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

No, let's keep it accurate. Y is a vowel in these cases, and many, many others. -R. fiend 02:07, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See vowel#Written vowels, English alphabet#Notes. "Y" is functionally a vowel. --Carnildo 07:09, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In defence here, the French pronounce y, igrec, or greek i. Squad'nLeedah 15:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

morphemes

Re: anti/dis/e/stabl/ish/ment/ari/an/ism/

/ism/ should be two morphemes: /is/m/. /is/ corresponds to the verbal suffix -ize and /m/ is a nominal suffix meaning result.

"The result (-m) of the act (-is-) of one who (-an) opposes (anti-) what pertains to (-ari) the result (-ment) of making (-ish) institutions (stabl-) completely (e-) separate (dis-) --Fulminouscherub 23:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Although I can't claim to be an expert, I'm dubious. Dictionary.com (well, The American Heritage Dictionary) says that -ism is ultimately from Greek -ismos[2], -ize from Greek -izein[3]. The connection isn't obvious enough for me to accept it without a source. EldKatt (Talk) 15:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't find any on-line support for -m is a nominal suffix--too short, I imagine. In Greek, -ma is the suffix one puts on the aorist stem of a verb to mean result. The aorist form of the verb stem -izein is -is-. How about an example? Schizein means to tear. The aorist stem is schis- and the result of tearing is schisma, which becomes schism in English. sch/is/m. --Fulminouscherub 03:09, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

We can't go based on what may or may not be a morpheme in some other language. "ism" is one morpheme in English. Furthermore, the "ish" in "establish" cannot be considered its own morpheme as stated in the article, because the "ish" suffix can only be used to create adjectives, and "establish" is a verb. I'm going to clean up some of the overzealous morpheme breaks in that section. -Branddobbe 08:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm kind of wondering what the point of this section is. Shouldn't it at least have a "Longest Morpheme"? --Shawnz (as 64.231.195.198) 02:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Twyndyllyngs

The word "Twyndyllyngs" looks very Welsh. I wonder if it's really an English language word. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.96.149.183 (talk • contribs) , at 21:46, 15 December 2005.

I wasn't able to find it in the Oxford English Dictionary. --Carnildo 00:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

As I mentioned in an edit summary [4], the word is not Welsh, and yes it is in the OED. It is listed as an alternative spelling at twinling ("twin"). But really this just demonstrates the futility of dividing letters into vowels and consonants without reference to the sounds they represent in different words. If the same word was spelt "twindillings" we would have no interest in it for this purpose. So it's a pretty spurious and unenlightening victory. Flapdragon 01:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Is the edit by 71.50.1.127 under Words with certain characteristics of notable length in any way verifiable? 1e9 characters seems like a fairly arbitrary number. Ryan McDaniel 23:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Know this word?

http://www.englishforums.com/English/LongestWordEnglishLanguage/2/jh/Post.htm

Chemical name for the "Tryptophan Synthetase A" protein

methionylglutamin ... larginylserine

I have removed most of the word (shown by the elipse) because its length was messing up some browsers, and note that the article discusses how biological and chemical names can be extended almost indefinitely. - DavidWBrooks 23:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Clean-up

• I really like this article, theoretically, it is interesting and contains a lot of information, but i am adding a clean-up tag because it is not structured very well and large chunks of it contain just one-line paragraphs, and there is widespread spontaneous bolding throughout the article for no reason. Doesn't need a lot of cleaning up, but needs some just the same. Jdcooper 16:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh, and also, the current clean up tag is too specific, sure the article needs verification, but there are other things wrong as well. Jdcooper 16:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • The big problem is that people regularly come along and add their pet "longest" word. --Carnildo 02:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I think people need to learn how to use the word "respectively" correctly.

A word from our sponsor

According to some, the longest word is the "word" after the sentence "And now, a word from our sponsors," because in radio advertisements, this phrase is conventionally followed by a rapid string of explanation equivalent to fine print in paper ads.

I believe this is a misinterpretation of the joke. The joke is that "And now, a word from our sponsors" could be followed by two minutes or so of commercials, and a "word" that took two minutes to say would be quite a long word.

There are indeed radio commercials, typically for cars, that end with rapid strings of explanations on the order of "All new car prices plus tax, title, license and document fee, all rebates and incentives assigned to dealer. Payments for 84 months at 7% APR financing with no money down to qualified buyers. Offer expires tomorrow." but such an explanation would not immediately follow the phrase "And now, a word from our sponsors"; it would follow the main content of the commercial. --Metropolitan90 02:24, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Good catch

We get that over here, at the end of political ads ie "ThisadwasspokenbyP.GarretonbehalfoftheliberalpartyCanberra" aussies will know EXACTLY what im on about XP Squad'nLeedah 15:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Pneumono­ultra­microscopic­silico­volcano­coniosis

The word pneumono­ultra­microscopic­silico­volcano­coniosis, also spelled pneumono­ultra­microscopic­silico­volcano­koniosis [...] is certainly the longest word ever to appear in a non-technical dictionary of English, Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary (multiple editions). However, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes it as "an entirely factitious word," and the Encyclopedia Britannica does not have an entry for it.

There doesn't seem to be an entry for it in OED2. Is this quote from the online edition, or where? Flapdragon 17:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I used to own several copies of the Guiness Book of World Records stretching as far back as the 50s and in some of the older books they mention this 45 letter word . It is said to be a miner's lung disease. They also mention a word containing about +/- 150 letters denoting a three day old ghoulash listed as the longest word in literature. By the way, is floccinaucinihillipillification mentioned in this article? Dessydes 23:28, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Aside from being prominently mentioned, directly underneath the paragraph about this word, no. - DavidWBrooks 23:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The longest word in the dictionary is not pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, but in fact happens to be pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiaphobia. I was told this by a girl whose name is Rachel West. She seemed to be rather intelligent, so I researched it. She was right! It means the fear of an ear infection, which seems rather odd...

That seems odd, considering that it gets no hits on Google. --Nucleusboy 19:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Mitochondrial DNA

I had to remove this sentence "The name for human mitochondrial DNA is more than 207,000 letters long. Some types of DNA could have as many as a billion letters if fully written out."

I was just pinged as a vandal for doing so, but I have reremoved it for the following reasons:

1) DNA sequence is not English, it uses latin characters as abbreviations for nucleotide order

2) The DNA sequence of a gene is not its name, for example we call human insulin "insulin" and not "gctgcatcag aagaggccat caagcacatc actgtccttc tgccatggcc ctgtggatgc gcctcctgcc cctgctggcg ctgctggccc tctggggacc tgacccagcc gcagcctttg tgaaccaaca cctgtgcggc tcacacctgg tggaagctct ctacctagtg tgcggggaac gaggcttctt ctacacaccc aagacccgcc gggaggcaga ggacctgcag gtggggcagg tggagctggg cgggggccct ggtgcaggca gcctgcagcc cttggccctg gaggggtccc tgcagaagcg tggcattgtg gaacaatgct gtaccagcat ctgctccctc taccagctgg agaactactg caactagacg cagcccgcag gcagcccccc acccgccgcc tcctgcaccg agagagatgg aataaagccc ttgaaccagc"

3) Even if by this dubious definition the sequence is actually a word, it is a word in which every letter has to be seperately pronounched (ie cat is c a t not "cat"), and in fact has never been said by a human.

4) If you were to include DNA sequence as a word, human mtDNA would be one of the shortest "words" around

5) As a "word" it could be read in two different directions with two different strands, it is different for every human, and the mtDNA genome is circular, so there is no beginning or end to the word.

In other words, this sentence had no place in the article. (as added by 24.18.228.58)

I hear what you say, but I always thought of the long word in this sense as the (one of the strands of) DNA's systematic name, a bit like cytosino-adenino-thymino-adenine (hyphens added for clarity) or however it's probably named by IUPAC or similar, like the peptides mentioned above. Though these probably have numbers in, so may be invalid (like the arsenical above in a different place). To be fair, I'm not convinced that these are useful "longest words" to have (your point 4) as you can always add another base, or amino acid to the end or beginning, a bit like although infinity is the largest number, infinity + 1 is larger still - also alluded to by DavidWBrooks, above. 86.130.139.201 09:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

scrabble

The reference given for the scrabble section is a non-existent book. I've updated the Gyles Brandreth bibliography with some amazon listings, so it's probably one of the 3 scrabble books mentioned there, but I don't know which. -Quiddity 23:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for "The Scrabble Omnibus" ? Just looked in the coverpages of the aforementioned book and it was originally published under that name.. 81.153.236.181 15:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

(just looked on amazon and will be updating isbn to a number referring to the omnibus book - FWIW http://www3.campusi.com/bookFind/asp/bookFindPriceLst.asp?prodId=185051514X links to the "original" book) 81.153.236.181

Ah, perfect. Thanks :) (I should've checked abebooks. All i checked was amazon and libcongress. But having the original work is even better.) -Quiddity 18:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious, how does one create these long scrabble words if you only are allowed to have 7 letters at a time? Xenocidic 20:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

You build them up a bit at a time by placing letters between previously placed words or letters. Canon 21:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The question is whether any of the words would have a conceivable board-state that would allow them to be played. I'd be interested to see a potential board that would allow them to be played -- and if anyone takes this challenge, keep in mind the letter counts for English scrabble! The longest word I've ever been able to play was 'discombobulated' due to a lucky chance placement of 'disco' and 'ulated'. Of course, it could also ave been played onto 'disco' and 'bob' if I'd had 'mulated' allowing me to play all 7 and get the extra 50 points. 69.181.120.218 04:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

ulated is not a word xenocidic (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

A number of short words placed perpendicularly along the target location for the long word should do the trick, as long as they miss the bonus squares. Canon 16:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

british usage numbers

In British usage, it would be 106(6560) = 1039360.

the open ended naming system for powers of ten needs a link to that page (there is one, but i cant remember where) and there also needs to be an explanation of the suggestion, above, that the british numbering would be different. surely the systematic system developed did not have a distinction in what the number-words mean based on your geographical origin? 83.99.8.27 12:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The "-illion" suffix presumably suggests "billion", which means a different quantity to British and American people IIRC. Dysprosia 12:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

I love this word so much as it is so ironic...

Meaning: Fear of long words

36 letters... I think that would be the longest, unless it's a "...volcanoconeosis" one, where it's not "real".

What do you think? --Retailmonica 16:31, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The word is mentioned in sections 2 and 24 in this talk page, and there seems to be a consensus against including it in the article. It's about as real as pneumo­noultra­microscopic­silico­volcano­coniosis, only far less notable. EldKatt (Talk) 15:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Whether it tickles somebody's funnybone or not, it's not used enough (if at all, aside from a persistent poster) to be noted, as is pneumon(etc). Find some other way to get it into the public consciousness. - DavidWBrooks 21:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It returned Dec. 9. It's hard to keep a bad hippo down ... - DavidWBrooks 00:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

And again Feb. 7, 2007 ... sigh. - DavidWBrooks 18:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

And again March. 27. You have to admire such persistence - sort of. - DavidWBrooks 17:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

And again June 20. - DavidWBrooks 13:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi. It might not be mentioned enough, but hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian is a real word. It's mentioned along with antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification, in a book called YOU ASKED FOR IT! by Marg Meikle, ISBN 0-439-98723-7 , page 146. Why doesn't it have an article when both of the other ones do? Should it be included? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 20:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

(returning to the left before we indent ourselves off the page!) No, sorry - lots of goofy pseudo-words are tossed into books to pad them out; that's not much of a reference. The other two words you mention have long, extended histories, making them worthy of inclusion here. The made-up hippothingy (which, as is noted above, misunderstands the root word) has no such legitimacy. - DavidWBrooks 21:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Try again, hippomonstrososesquipedelian is in fact a real word, in a real dictionary. Agree the addition of the "-phobia" suffix is false. Ref. Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, wherein antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification are also mentioned. Amazon for book: http://www.amazon.com/Byrnes-Dictionary-Unusual-Obscure-Preposterous/dp/0806504986 dunerat (talk) 06:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's exactly the sort of non-useful reference mentioned above - a book that lists funny/weird/goofy "words" without much in the way of references; the more it includes, the better it sells, which isn't much of an incentive for rigor. Antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification exist in actual usage, not just in lists compiled for entertainment value. That's the difference, and it's a big one.- DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:31, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Is reference.com an authoritative enough dictionary for you? http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia Zelbinian (talk) 08:03, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

That certainly seems much better! One minor question - it's part of Ask.com, so are some terms user-submitted? I ask because this definition says the following at the bottom:

Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7)
Copyright © 2003-2008 Dictionary.com, LLC 

whereas an obviously real world says this:

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Note that the latter gives a source, whereas the "hippo ..." word doesn't. That doesn't mean it's wrong, of course, but it makes me wonder. "Preview edition" - is that like a beta test dictionary? (Note, by the way, that the term Webster's is no copyrighted for dictionaries, so it can be used by anybody. It doesn't necessarily mean a connection with an existing dictionary publisher.) - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

This simply is not legitimate. Reference.com lists that word in it's "preview edition" without any reference, as none of the dictionaries it includes list it. If anybody can find an actual link to an actual case of a fear of long words, perhaps you could BEGIN to build a case. Past that, you would have to explain what the "hippomonstro-" prefix was doing if not to artificially lengthen the word (I highly doubt the existence of such a prefix as "monstro-" anyways, and "hippo-" relates to horses, not largeness). As of right now, it seems obvious dictionaries are incredibly lenient on their inclusion criteria for such words, since they even include words coined for the purpose of being long (pneumono...osis), but they STILL don't include this word. It simply does not exist. Eebster the Great (talk) 03:28, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Bangkok

In the Bangkok article it gives the full name of Bangkok as a list of separate words when translated into English. If this is the most correct way to transliterate this name, then it is not qualified to be considered a single long word. Any Thai/English speakers who can clarify the issue? Canon 23:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

It's been a month since I last asked this question: Are we sure that the multi-word Thai name of Bangkok really transliterates into a single English word? If we don't hear in the affirmative from a Thai/English speaker within the next month, I'll remove that word from the article. Canon 02:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

This is an article about longest single words, not longest names made up of multiple words. If we start listing longest multi-word names we're going to have to list people who have 100 words in their name and so on. Canon 18:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The boundary between a single word and multiple words is disputed; see Word#Difficulty in defining the term. --Damian Yerrick (☎) 21:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Admittedly many compounds are sometimes written open and sometimes closed, as in Bang Kok versus Bangkok. But in this case the long Thai name is many words that look a lot more like a sentence than a word, so I think it falls outside of the grey area. Canon 21:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Good point, although the other place names are compound words too. The whole section could be split off to Longest place name, though I wouldn't be surprised if there used to be such a separate article that was marged. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-15 19:52Z

I agree. I think longest name is a separate concept from longest word and probably deserves its own article. Canon 21:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It is not English word and as such should not be included in this article. It is Thai and it is not transliterated, it is simply written in romanised letters. Also the full name of Bangkok is not one word it is many words together to form a name, such as New York, Los Angles. Oh and Yes i am a Thai speaker.

I have removed the entire section, for the reasons given above - this is about "longest word" (singular) and the section concerned "longest multi-word names" (plural). - DavidWBrooks 12:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed compound word

I propose a longer word, the base word of antidisestablishmentary Wouldn't the study of it be antidisestablishmentariology. and the person studying it be an antidisestablishmentarianologist. Thus there are 2 longer words than stated, even though they are derived from the same root.

As pointed out in the article, there is no limit to the length of potential words in English, since English can form compound words by adding prefixes or suffixes. However, to move from being a potential word to being an actual word, a word has to be used in a variety of contexts. Relatively few of the potential words satisfy this criterion. Those that do usually make it into a dictionary. Canon 20:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that is a better option for the longestlongest word than pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism.

Lol, we'll put it in the article as soon as you find the first antidisestablishmentariologist in the field. Till then, while acceptable, it will more than likely never be used in any real context.

Also, I was looking over some antichrist/rapture/other religious garbage stuff before I came to this article. Another good 29 letter word which subsequently brought me here:

hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia – the fear of the number 666. Considering this is actually a common condition in the western world, I'd say it deserves a mention. AeoniosHaplo 08:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The condition being common is not the same as the word being common; is there a major English dictionary that contains it? Canon 14:48, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Would like to see this proven as a common condition anywhere. Pretty sure that while [Triskaidekaphobia] is fairly common, hexakosio... is not.dunerat (talk) 06:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Shampoo

Heres one for you - Methylethylisothiazolinone, its a compound used in shampoo, that one you can look up yourself. I think i got the whole lot, it actually looks shorter on here than on the bottle.... (im at work and cant actually LOOK at a bottle of shampoo mind you) Squad'nLeedah 15:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

pronuciations

pronunciations please, i cant say a few of these ~~SleweD

Missing Fish

The paragraph on flocci­nauci­nihili­pili­fication, right after talking about Mike McCurry saying flocc..., it says "At 22 letters (including the okina) it is one of the best known very long one-word names for an animal. It is occasionally quipped that the name is longer than the fish.". I assume there's supposed to be a new paragaraph and word, but I don't know what it is. - Webrunner 18:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem was an unmatched ref tag, which I fixed. I hope nothing else was lost. Canon 20:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The Top Ten of Everything 2000 as a potential source?

According to The Top 10 of Everything 2000, by Russell Ash, the longest word is 1909 letters long. Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucyl...serine. It is an enzyme. The full word is typed out in the book for sure, and a person on this thread has typed out something that certainly looks similar, although their may be errors. The second longest word in this list is 1189 letters long. Both of those words are referenced here, but a different number of letters is mentioned in the book I am looking at. The third one on the list is less technical, it is a word that medieval scribes used to describe a deluded human who took part in supersticious practices. Once again, a weblink that is unreliable as a source is the best I can find, but this book is surely reliable? The next word is a 17 ingredient dish, the word appeared as a translation from a Greek book, and that word is mentioned at the Assemblywomen article. The others are also pretty long, but I have run out of steam! J Milburn 17:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Once you start including chemical names, words can get arbitrarily long. Methylwhatsit isn't that long as such things go. --Carnildo 00:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

It has appeared in print. However, I agree with you. What about the other words I mentioned? J Milburn 14:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The word hepaticocholangiocholecystenterostomy appears in wiktionary. 208.255.229.66 20:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

suggestion

Hi. What about "micropachycephalosaurus"? It's the longest dinosaur name, at 23 letters. Is it noteworthy, and should it be in the article? Thanks. AstroHurricane001^{(Talk+Contribs+Ubx)} 23:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

And what about the longest insect name? The longest mammal name? The longest amphibian name? The longest tree name? The longest grass name? The longest ... well, you get the point. (In other words, no.) - DavidWBrooks 01:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

there the word electrophotomicrographically which is 28 letters long

Antirhodochthonopseudophallofetishism is also a word describing an opposition to the worship of red clay phallic idols or lingams. It has 37 letters with a possible 39 if -rhodo- is alternately spelled -rhodhio-. This would pretty much round off the list of h-modified consonants it contains. 211.26.134.192 (talk) 10:53, 17 September 2008 (UTC) Ian Ison

Longest Word

I found this word on a website, while i was doing a spelling bee:

methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglysylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylyalylthreonylleucylglcycylaspartylprolylglicylisoleucyglutamylglutaminlserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleuleucylproluylphenylalanyserylaspartyprolylleucelalanylaspartyllglycylprolylthreonylisolleucyglutaminylasparaginylalanythreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglglutamylmethionylleucyalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolyuthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasbaraginylleucylvalylphenylalanylsparaginyyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanylyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylspartylserylvalylleucylvallalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalvlglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalalrginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalalprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinlprolyprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartyspartyleucylleucylarginylglutaminlisoleucylalanylseryltyroslglycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginlalanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylanylalanylleucylprolylleucylaspaaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagimylalnylalanyprolylprlylleucylglutaminylglycylphenlalanylglycylisoleyucylserylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalnylalanylisoleucylalspartylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylasoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylbalyllysylisoleuvylisoleuvylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpronylglutamyllysylmethionylluevylalanylalanyoeucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutamilylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine

Is it a true word? And does anyone know how to pronounce it? But it is obviously not in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.197.178.161 (talk) 02:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

Did you read the article and this talk page carefully? `'mikka 02:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

no...why?

Major dictionaries

The reason for the subheading "Major dictionaries" was to provide a criterion by which words were included in the section at the top of the article. Unfortunatley I now predict that without the subheading there will be many additions of non-dictionary long words there. Canon 16:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we should return it, then, over the Websters and OED entries, leaving Shakespeare and the fish under the current new heading. In fact, Ill do that and see how it goes. - DavidWBrooks 17:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I just had to delete a redundancy added by a new user to the "Other notable long words" section, perhaps because it is unclear if this section refers to "long words that are notable" or "notable words that are long." By the way, the Shakespearean and Roman coinages are dictionary words. I'm not sure about the Hawaiian fish. Canon 21:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that "notable" heading is pretty vague, a sort of hangover from a much-earlier version of the page. Maybe we should just kill them, or put them under "trivia" or something like that. The "dictionary" list is supposed to be, I think, the longest word in each of a couple of highly reputable dictionaries. In fact, there are large chunks of this page that really don't belong under the title "longest" - more like "wicked long words" or something. Almost more suitable for English words with uncommon properties, although that article is groaningly over-long already. - DavidWBrooks 21:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, that whole section could be deleted since it is redundant with the "uncommon properties" article. On the other hand, I think the "Major dictionaries" section should include words that are commonly considered longest and which of course are in major dictionaries, which I would say includes the "antid-" word, the Shakespearean coinage, and the long fish name (which is right on the dividing line and only makes it in because it is frequently mentioned in articles on the subject). The "sesqui-" word could be lost since it's a bit of humor that invites people to contribute their own favorite joke. Canon 22:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

teetertotter?

The comment that typewriter is not the longest word on the top row of a qwerty keyboard takes account of North American usage only. The word Teetertotter? is largely unknown outside of the US. --Brideshead 19:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Anyone got proof?

I have not found the first two longest words anywhere... is this a hoax???????! Kopf1988 19:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Fear of 666 - Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

The fear of the number 666 is pretty long... i think about 30 letters. ∆ Algonquin 13:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC) The name is Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (29 letters) as here... US town escapes 666 phone prefix should this be included ?

No. Should we include every very long, mildly interesting word in the English language? The title of this article is not Really long words in the English language - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

is it either coined or technical?--86.27.237.8 (talk) 14:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)--86.27.237.8 (talk) 14:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)--86.27.237.8 (talk) 14:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)--86.27.237.8 (talk) 14:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

da hell?

This passage:

"The longest published word is the mathematical pattern abacaba...z...abacaba, a fractal word containing 67,108,863 characters. The pattern is constructed as follows: A, aBa, abaCaba, abacabaDabacaba, etc. The word occupies four 400-page volumes and is also the name of a character in a children's story."

...seems extremely dubious to me, so I removed it. (1) There obviously cannot be a children's story with a character with a name over 16 million letters long, (2) four 400-page volumes? Somebody printed these? Unlikely (3) It's just a pattern, not a word, and would have unpronounceable parts. Herostratus 11:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Your removal didn't go through, so I removed it; exactly agree with (1) and (3). (2) is possible. There are fractal music compositions recorded which take several hours to perform, so someone could have published a four-volume set of letters. But agreed, just because it has letters and no spaces doesn't make it a word. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 13:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Also by my calculation, that "word" is only 33,554,431 characters long. I think whoever wrote that assumed they would start with 1 and then have 26 iterations of $n_{i+1}=2n_{i}+1$, but actually there are only 25 such iterations. JulesH 19:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Ignore me. The python function 'xrange()' produces a non-inclusive range, not an inclusive one. My mistake. JulesH 20:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Longest Monosyllabic

Squirrelled, anybody? Pronounced sk + world --Nricardo 02:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

That might be how you pronounce it, but it's far from universal. JulesH 19:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

very, very long medieval word

Hi. I was reading a ripley's believe it or not book, and it turns out there is this one very long word. According to the book, it is a 309-letter long word, correctly spelt by 9-year-old Aaron Zweig of Randolph, New Jersy. It says it was used in the Medieval times to describe someone who can predict the future. Hopefully this does not push copyright restrictions, but if it does not, then here is the word:

Ornicopytheobibliopsychocrystarroscioaerogenethliometeoroaustrohieroanthropoichthyopyrosiderochpnomyoalectryoophiobotanopegobydrorhabdocrithoaleuroalphitohalomolybdoclerobeloaxinocoscinodactyliogeolithopessopsephocatoptrotephraoneirochiroonychodactyloarithstichooxogeloscogastrogyrocerobletonooenosapulinaniac

.

So, should it be added? It does have a relatively reliable source. If you need an exact citation, then here it is, if nessecary: book, title: Ripley's Believe It or Not!^®: Special Edition 2007, ISBN 0-439-82598-9, (read in North America, "Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available"). It's got a word, and a citation, so should it be added? Is there any chance it's already there? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 18:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Ripley's Believe It or Not is not a citation for this word; it seems that they are reporting on a spelling bee and the people who created the word list for the spelling bee presumably have a citation. This is the citation that needs to be tracked down. Otherwise this may be a hoax. Canon 20:46, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks clearly made up to me. It consists of a bunch of common latin and greek based prefixes, joined together with '-o-' and then '-sapulinaniac' at the end. The prefixes don't seem even approximately related, and few of them seem plausibly connected with the claimed meaning. What, if anything, does "aero-" have to do with future predicting? "dactylio-"? "gastro-"? JulesH 19:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The 'used in mediaeval times' part seems particularly odd... given that 99% of the population couldn't read or write and the other 1% wouldn't have been able to pay a scribe to write something that long. --Nucleusboy 19:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You can find it under Google by looking for "310 letters" (e.g. http://xo.typepad.com/blog/2004/11/img_alt_srchttp_174.html ). It's recent origin can be traced back to Russell Ash's "Top 10 of Everything" books. According to Russell it was published in Robert Ripley, 'The Omnibus Believe it or Not!' (London: C. Arthur Pearson - undated, but c.1935), page 276, but he and I now think this is probably someone playing a prank on Ripley, because Russell checked with a medievalist who said, basically, there is no way this could be a word used in the middle ages -- it doesn't parse, words were no longer then than they are now, and it isn't even proper transliterated Latin. Maybe it was motivated by the appearance of P45 that same year. Canon (talk) 21:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

A couple of comments

In the scrabble section, scores are given for the two words mentioned that assume the score is tripled three times if the word is played across three triple word scores. However, I can't see any way that this is possible. You only score bonuses for the tiles you play in a turn, not the tiles that are already on the board.

Pretty sure that's not true.. While I don't have the rules in front of me, but I'm pretty sure that if, for example, you put an "S" on the end of a word, and that S is on a double word score, you get double points for every letter in the word. Now, if you're point is that scrabble scores are completely off-topic in an article allegedly about the longest word in English, then I certainly agree. -R. fiend 21:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is that. But the point I was making is that if the word you're placing the 'S' on has a tile on a double word score, you don't double it again. It isn't possible to play tiles on all 3 of the triple word scores at the same time, so the score described is impossible. JulesH 18:06, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

This came up nearer the top of the talk page... if the spaces between the triples were bridged by words going the other way, you could just fill in the gaps and get all three triples, for the win. --Nucleusboy 19:36, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The decomposition of "Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic" describes the first section as meaning "equal", but this seems nonsensical in context. It would be much more logical if it were a corrupted form of "Aquae-". Do we have a source for this translation, or are we relying on original research here? JulesH 20:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's meant to be construed as "containing equal parts of salt, calcium, wax, aluminum, copper, and sulphuric acid". Come to think of it, how does spa water get wax or sulphuric acid in it without killing the bathers? --Nucleusboy 19:36, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Archive 1

I have archived all the Talk in which the entire conversation ended in 2005 or earlier - so some conversations are still here that began in 2005 or earlier, if they continued in 2006 or later. This is still a hefty Talk page, but it's not quite so enormous now. - DavidWBrooks 12:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Removed Twyndyllyngs

I removed the sentence:

• Twyndyllyngs is the longest word without any of the common vowel letters a, e, i, o, or u (although w and y function as vowels in this word).

This is spurious - the word is Welsh, not English, so English vowel rules don't apply. W and Y are vowels in Welsh. EyeSerene^TALK 10:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

With respect, that's not true; twyndyllyng is found in the Oxford English Dictionary, as a variant spelling of twinling (see this). Thefamouseccles 23:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't access that link (requires registration), but I'll defer to your expertise ;) EyeSerene^TALK 12:16, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

New top word

Someone added a 'longest word in english' which "apparently" has 1909 letters, can somebody (or the person that added it) confirm this and explain/create a page to show what is means because it needs an explanation as it looks incorrect Prem4eva 20:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It turns out the new 1909-letter word is the chemical name for tryptophan synthase. Any publication in this form is no more or less serious that the publication of the much longer chemical name for titin, which is cited in the Technical section. Having edited this article for some time now, I recognize that someone will replace this table entry with another (possibly shorter) entry if we delete it. Therefore I propose as a bit of "defensive editing" to replace it with titin, while removing the statement that it was published "seriously." Canon 21:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Is the 1185-letter chemical name published innocently, i.e., is the citation independent of its length? Is it a use of the word as opposed to a mention of the word? Canon 11:09, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

My main concern was that since the 1909-letter word didnt have any explaination it just seemed as if it was just a jumble of letters, as improbable as a word with over 1000 letters or (now) 100,000 letters seems, as long as the word has a wiki page with it's meaning, it seems ok Prem4eva 15:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

So you might ask, why is the 1185-letter word in the table instead of the 1909-letter word? They both have Wiki pages, and 1185 is less than 1909. But then the 189,819-letter word also has a Wiki page and is longer still. All three are full chemical names of molecules that have some biological function, which is why they have Wiki pages. The reason proposed is that the 1185-letter word was published in Chemical Abstracts in 1972. This is not adequate for three reasons.

First, for word records it is important to distinguish innocent citations from contrived ones. This is particularly true for the longest word record. As the article explains, long words have been frequently coined and then published. In the vast majority of cases the sole purpose is to get the word in print so that it can be cited as an example for articles such as this. Rather than uncritically accepting all such citations, lexicographers accept only citations where the word is "innocently" used (as opposed to merely mentioned). A lexicographer would not uncritically accept one citation of a word in one edition of Chemical Abstracts. The word would have to appear in more than one source over a number of years.

Second, it has not been shown that the 1185-letter full chemical name is the longest ever published in a serious context. What has been asserted (without proof) is that it was published in Chemical Abstracts in 1972. Even if the missing citation for this were provided, this is not enough. What is needed is a citation to an article demonstrating that this is the longest full chemical name ever published in a "serious" context. By the way, if this claim originated in Guinness or Ripley's, there are a number of problems. Was the claim made in the latest edition? If not, the claim may be obsolete. Was the claim merely that the word was published? If so, that is not the same as claiming that it is the longest such. Finally, these books are not reliable, especially on issues like this.

Third, as mentioned above, as a piece of defensive editing it is probably advisable to list the 189,819-letter full chemical name of titin; since titin is the longest known molecule so it will put a stop to the insertion of other similar entries picked up from books like Ripley's or Guinness. Canon 18:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

A 1185-letter full chemical name has been added to the table with the claim that it was published "seriously" in Chemical Abstracts in 1972. This is an unusual claim and as such requires verification. It is unusual because several chemists have stated that no chemist uses these long full chemical names. The prima facie evidence is that the publication in Chemical Abstracts was a prank similar to several others detailed in the article. The assertion to the contrary requires specific proof.

It is arguable that full chemical names are words, and this ambiguity has been fully addressed by listing the 189,819-letter name of titin, the longest known protein. Canon 02:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The 189000 letter word or whatever is not properly sourced and should not be featured

If you look at the article, you will find that they found the word in an old version of wikipedia. Since wikipedia should not source itself, you need to find another article that sources it (be careful, other ones sourcing wikipedia could be copycatting, so look for ones with a scientific source). I am going ahead and removing it from the article until a proper source is found. --Kyle112 22:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

And it was not in the American Chemical Society's abstracts, I have seen no source of that, and will continue to oppose this so called word until an actual source is found. --Kyle112 05:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

This article acknowledges that there are competing standards for what is a word: dictionary entries, place names, technical terms, coinages, and so forth. Long chemical names are a special case of the technical term standard, which is justified by listings in Guinness and various word puzzle books. One of these works claims that the 1185-letter name was listed in Chemical Abstracts in 1972, but Google Books has a reference to both this and the 1913-letter chemical name in Word Ways in 1968, so the practice of listing these as examples of long words predates 1972. On the other hand, no professional lexicographer would put any of them in a dictionary, because they are not used by chemists. The single listing of the 1185-letter name in Chemical Abstracts in 1972 is insufficient evidence for dictionary inclusion. But that is irrelevant because we're not using the lexicographer's criteria to judge technical terms. Technical terms are judged on technical grounds. As such, the 189,819-letter chemical name for titin is the longest because titin is the longest protein. Canon 14:43, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Sesquioxidizing

"Because sesquioxidizing has the high-scoring Q and Z, it would score 62 × 27 = 1674 if played across an edge of the board with three triple word squares and two double letter squares involved. This is possible by the first player laying 'ox', the second player adding 'idizing' and the first player adding 'sesqui' to the beginning."

This is wrong. If "oxidizing" has already been placed, then adding "sesqui" to the beginning will score only 156. Two of the triple word squares and one double letter square will have have already been covered and so don't count again. To achieve 1674, the initial S, Q, X, Z and G must all be laid down on the same turn. -- Smjg 00:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Definition

There is a word in the Oxford English Dictionary which has the meaning along the lines of "a very long word". What word is this? I am sure it should be included in here. Simply south 15:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The word is monstrososesquipedelian, defined as "pertaining to a very long word." Lack of usage, however, would probably preclude it from entry here. Likewise, hippomonstrososesquipedelian, "pertaining to a very, very long word."dunerat (talk) 07:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That is false. The word you are looking for is "sesquipedalian," which etymologically comes from "foot-and-a-half." This word is four hundred years old and listed in several major dictionaries. On the other hand, "monstrosesquipedalian" doesn't even return results on google independent of the word "hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian," which is even more ridiculous. "Monstro-" is not a real prefix, and nor is "hippopoto-." "Hippo-" is perhaps real, but relates to horses, not hippopotomi. The word appears to have been coined in Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous words, as no earlier reference has been found by its avid supporters on this talk page. Eebster the Great (talk) 03:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

One thing...

I HAVE found the long almost 200000 letter word in a school dictionary but I forget which one. Djf2014 17:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Beleaguered?

"'Smiles' is humorously considered to be the longest word, as there is a mile between the two 's'es. However, by this reckoning 'beleaguered' would be the longest, as it contains a league, which is about three miles"
Yeah, and taut has an au between the ts. And flyswatter has a ly between the f and the swatter. . . . I can see including the smiles reference, because that is a classic old joke, but I'm not sure any "improvements" are necessary. They may even be considered OR. Emoll (talk) 19:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

(Not to mention cupcake [with a pc] and caMpcraft [with a Mpc].) Emoll (talk) 21:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

But those are abbreviations, not words in and of themselves. So they don't follow the same "reckoning". And if you suspect something is OR, you put a tag on it, rather than assuming bad faith on the editor's part. -- trlkly 18:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I did not assume bad faith on the previous editor's part. I did think my broaching, on the talk page, the possibility of OR (inadvertent and well-meaning though it may have been) would be less likely to offend and more likely to encourage discussion than slapping a tag on. But (lacking a citation), it is OR (especially the claim that it "would be the longest," not merely "longer"). I will delete the sentence. Also, I am not aware that there is an official rule book that says using a word in this "game" is legal but an abbreviation is not. And even if we are restricted to words, well, we could say "Megaparsecs is the longest word in the English language because there is a megaparsec before the final s. I think leaving the classic "smiles" joke in (with a citation) and deleting the rest is the best solution. Emoll (talk) 22:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately I think this falls under WP:ILIKEIT, but, well, I liked that sentence. Could we add in a sentence saying something akin to 'of course by this logic, a word with a large unit of distance would be ever longer.' - maybe giving an example of two in a footnote? --Neo (talk) 08:18, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Done (all within the footnote). Emoll (talk) 19:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Aha! I found a published source for beleaguered, so that's back in. Also added the Red Skelton joke about "a word from our sponsor." Emoll (talk) 15:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Repertoire - addition to longest top row typewritten word

I didn't see Repertoire (should be listed with perpetuity, proprietor, and typewriter)
'perl -nle 'print if /^[qwertyuiop]+$/i && length >= 10' /usr/share/dict/words '
DavidDyck (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

awful table

I think I'm going to replace the awful table with prose. Wikipedia shouldn't cater to those who are too lazy to read a text and only look for a penis word length comparison. User:Dorftrottel 15:15, January 14, 2008

No, please don't - unless others agree with you, of course. I'm a fan of text over tables, or text or bullets, or text over most alternative forms of information, but in this case I think the table works quite well. Putting it into text would be messier and less readable. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:32, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I won't remove it without consensus, that's why I posted here. But I wouldn't agree that the important points need a table, particularly not close to the top of the article, that distracts readers from more interesting and important aspects of the topic. The info currently included in the table as "pros" and "cons" (arguably the worst part) could be written up as an interesting section on the viability and validity of different criteria and examples, such as discussing artifical words intentionally constructed as longest words etc. See this link. User:Dorftrottel 20:36, January 14, 2008

I agree that the table does look funny that high in the article, but I can't think of a good place to move it to. Can you?

But I must disgree about the pros-and-cons section - I think that works quite well in this table, although it could very easily be a god-awful mess. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

What I find difficult, to say the least, about "pros"/"cons" (particularly that precise naming, though I couldn't think of a better alternative while keeping the table) is that it evokes and advances a quick value judgement rather than providing and instigating interest in a thorough explanation of the relevant aspects. How about a bulleted list as a compromise? It may still be sorted by length, but would afford us to include a far more differentiated evaluation of each word. User:Dorftrottel 21:14, January 14, 2008

As to a better place for the table, how about a section "Words cited as the longest in the English language" or some such? User:Dorftrottel 21:16, January 14, 2008

I think the table should stay. Rather than reading prose, it is much easier to see a simple table, and they are not too lazy to read. I don't care where you put the table as long as it is near the top so people don't have to scroll down. Reywas92^Talk 23:05, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

You mean scroll down past all the text they intend to read later? User:Dorftrottel 23:47, January 14, 2008

Clarification: I wanted to move it so it isn't at the top any more, because that looks weird and we are encouraging people to not read the text at all. Might as well have only the table. User:Dorftrottel 01:05, January 15, 2008

I agree that initially I reacted negatively to the table because it seemed like a hopeless attempt to summarize an inherently complicated situation. But then I changed my attitude because I realized it is a bit like a journalist creating an opening paragraph: What is the information that summarizes the story? History has taught us that not everyone is as interested as we are in the details, so the ability to summarize is an important skill. In the last few months we've spent a lot of time debating over exactly what words deserve to be in the table. For example, at the moment someone has deleted the longest technical term, the full chemical name for titin, from the table. I predict that pretty soon someone will add the 1,185 letter full chemical name for something or other back into the table, after which someone else will add the 1,913 letter name for some other compound, after which we will be back to titin. So these things have an iterative character that eventually settles in a compromise (hopefully, otherwise there is an endless cycle of edits). Canon (talk) 14:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I did remove Titin, as I found not a single reliable source for the claim to the longest word. It appears to be nothing but an internet meme. That's also the kind of article usage I fear this table is advancing: If someone isn't interested in reading a detailed account, that's fine by me. But we shouldn't actually cater to their disinterest, as we are doing with the table. We should provide incentives and get the reader engaged and interested, get them to want to know more. The table does exactly the opposite. See also Image:Size_of_English_Wikipedia_broken_down.png. User:Dorftrottel 14:49, January 15, 2008

I agree that an opening summary paragraph (as in a newpaper article) would be a better way to get the casual browser the information they are seeking, while at the same time providing incentives for the potentially more involved reader to investigate further. (As for titin I've already stated my opinion about it previously on this page.) Canon (talk) 17:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I am in favor of tables, bulleted and number lists, and graphs; they are the best summaries ever invented. Zginder ^{(talk) (Contrib)} 00:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and created Meta:Association of Wikipedians for tables, bulleted and number lists, and graphs on Meta. Zginder ^{(talk) (Contrib)} 00:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

LOL. "Association of Wikipedians who hate prose" User:Dorftrottel 08:22, January 31, 2008

They are summaries not replacements for prose. Zginder ^{(talk) (Contrib)} 16:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. Uh, NPOV makes Dorftrottel's opinion pointless (after he stated it once). His most recent response is bordering on violating WP:CIVIL. Making jokes at the expense of other people's opinions is never cool, and only weakens the position of the person who presents it. That is all. -- trlkly 18:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Sesquioxidizing

I'm no Scrabble expert, but wouldn't it be possible to have 8 of its 15 letters already on the board, none of them on bonus squares, and place the other 7 letters, thus getting credit for the entire word plus all the bonuses? Canon (talk) 17:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

That sort of debate is why I removed the portion of the section about high scores; this was turning into a Scrabble article. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:04, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the entire section of "long words with certain properties" should be moved to the article on "words with unusual properties" (which is itself a mess, but that is another subject). However, the question I ask above is not debateable since it is based on the well-defined rules of Scrabble. I don't know the answer, but someone who has access to a Scrabble set should be able to give a definitve answer. Just because someone is willing to debate something doesn't mean it is not knowable or should not be (somewhere) in an encyclopedia. That position would be to hold the encyclopedia hostage to aggressive ignorance. Canon (talk) 21:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure - just not in this article. Did you ask in the Talk at Scrabble?- DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

My point is not whether it is true, it is whether it is knowable. In this case it seems to me that the answer is knowable. I can determine that without knowing the answer. Or at least I can determine that it appears to be likely that it is knowable. I worry that if we delete knowable information from the encyclopedia because someone wishes to debate it, then we are setting a dangerous precedent. Canon (talk) 15:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm not understanding you. Legitimate information is deleted all the time in wikipedia because it's inappropriate to the article, and rightly so. Otherwise articles turn into a mish-mash of barely related stuff. I removed several lines about Scrabble scoring from this article beause I thought we were venturing too far afield from the topic. That doesn't strike me as terribly dangerous. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:01, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

There were two issues, but I think one is resolved. The question of what is the highest scoring word in Scrabble is something people are likely to want to know, and we now appear to agree that it is knowable. It is something that is not easy to think clearly about. For these reasons it is information that should be in Wikipedia somewhere. Because Wikipedia is assembled by volunteers, it is not well organized. The information was put in this article because someone thought that this was the logical place for it. This at least makes it available via a search engine, so that is a good thing. It probably could better go somewhere else, but I don't think it's a good thing to delete it from one place without also putting it in the better place. Canon (talk) 16:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I look forward to you placing it in the an article where it is appropriate. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I moved the entire Scrabble paragraph including the deleted text to the English words with uncommon properties article and replaced it with a link. Canon (talk) 18:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Good - except there's already a link to that article under the general "See also". Does anybody know how to make a link go to a subsection? (There's a # involved, but the details escape me.) The link under "Scrabble" should go directly to the Scrabble subsection of the "uncommon properties" article, so it doesn't confuse people who follow it. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:55, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks User:Zginder. As long as we're on the subject, I reiterate that the paragraph that I moved makes the seemingly incorrect claim that the 15-letter words cannot be played in one move. Could someone please explain why 7 letters of these 15-letter words could not be placed on the bonus squares between 8 previously placed letters? Canon (talk) 19:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It likely would not be possible (or at least, barely feasible), because it doesn't look possible to get enough small words and parts down on the right locations with the make-up of the letters in the board, as it were. Killervogel5 (talk) 15:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Most extreme cases are likely to be barely feasible. Canon (talk) 15:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

another long word

electroencepholography-an instrument recording the electrical activity of the brain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.118.58.124 (talk) 03:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

What is required to coin a new word?

Is the 2 millon plus string of letters that Nigel Tomm has included in the tenth volume of his self-published "The Blah Book" a new coined word? At any moment there are numerous long strings that individuals have coined for various reasons. Rarely do these make it into a reference work, although P45 did, because in the 1930s citations for it were generated and sent to the editors of Webster's Second and the OED. Is the contemporary equivalent to this being listed in this article? In other words, does listing it here cause it to become a word? Canon (talk) 19:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I first removed reference to it then after a moment's thought un-did my removal, because it seemed such an extreme case that it was worth pointing out. But this is a slippery slope, for sure. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Slope getting more slippery?

If Nigel Tomm's 2 million letter word qualifies for inclusion, then so should the 4.4-million-letter word created by Mark Leach in "Marienbad My Love." According to marienbadmylove.com, it is a coinage of words from the world's faiths. Here is an excerpt from the novel ... it was the Cicadians who came from the back of beyond to bring us the holy Jah, the 4.4-million-character word that means “god within.” Let us speak the holy noun now, in reverent prayer to the Supreme Deity....... Dhalgren195 (talk) 02:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Redirection

Sesquipedalianism should not redirect here. It is not the same thing as "Longest word in English", so it should have an article of its own if at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.86.34.188 (talk) 10:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Longest Placenames in English

Surely there should be some mention of the longest hyphenated place name: Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe in the North Riding? --86.15.128.27 (talk) 18:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Not in this article, which is specifically about single words.dunerat (talk) 07:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Longest Word on Right Side on a QWERTY keyboard

Maybe the words "lollipop" or "lollypop" could be considered the longest word that can be written on a QWERTY keyboard, although not much research has gone into this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aeros2 (talk • contribs) 14:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Only English words?

Well, my English is not really good, but I hope, you understand me. Why that's a list only about english words? Can here be also words in other languages? In Esperantosh, in Finnish, in Japanse(?) and in Zulusch(?) Wikipedia is a article about the longest words in all big languages. 88.114.42.128 (talk) 14:53, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

As the English language Wikipedia it makes sense that we would have an article on the longest word in English before any other language ... but a case could potentially be made for articles on other languages. The difficulty comes in where some languages are composed of many small stems added together (e.g. some Inuit languages) or in which words can be added together to form some kind of supermegahugebigwordofdeath (like German).

Also English has possible prompted some more discussion than other langauges on this matter for a couple of reasons;

i) English has no central authority (like the Academie Francaise to regulate usage, so there is no authority which says that word 'x' or 'y' is English. ii) English has in the twentieth century become the language of Science, so it could be argued that all Scientific vocabulary is a part of the English language. iii) English speakers have a ridiculous obsession with word play ( ;-) )

So, erm, in summary, there is no reason why we couldn't have a Longest word in French (or whatever) article, but nobody has got around to writing such an article yet. --Neil (talk) 17:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Lopadotemachoselachogaleo...

"Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon"

I believe the link to the above page should be modified so it will not have to redirect. It would be a simple change, seeing as the link itself would remain the same if the above word was included in a format such as this.

Praetertranssubstantiationalistically (37 letters)

I recall seeing praetertranssubstantiationalistically (pree-ter-tran-sub-stan-chee-ay-shen-u-lis'-tik-u-lee), 37 letters, mentioned as the longest published English word, appearing in Mark McShane's Untimely Ripped (1963). I believe it's a term dealing with the transsubstantiation of Christ during the Eucharist. Google provides several links for it, notably a reference at AskOxford.com. Apparently it was also mentioned in several editions of the Guinness Book of World Records. Should this word be listed? — Loadmaster (talk) 16:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Since "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" has 45 letters and has been published, how can it claim that status? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

While it is not the longest word in English, it is an exceptionally long word that has been coined relatively recently and referenced in non-dictionary secondary sources, e.g., Guinness. It should be listed in the "coined words" section. Canon (talk) 23:09, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The Coinages section lists a few extremely long (three-digit) words that have been around a very long time, plus "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", which is so famous from Mary Poppins that it is a category into itself. Does this submission rise to that level of length/notoriety?

My personal opinion is no, partly because it's an uninterestingly long word - "transsubstantiation" with a prefix and some suffixes - but mostly because nobody has ever taken it up. It's a novelty act, as are many of the words in this article, but not a novelty act at the extreme of any measurement; for example, the AskOxford response you point to includes longer coined words. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 23:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

It is not stated in the article, and may not be well known, that at any one point in time there are a large number of coined long words that have been published in various places. Very few of these words are picked up by other authors and almost none of them make it into a dictionary. Some of them do make it into the secondary literature and WP policy requires this as a minimum standard of inclusion. Is it useful to list several qualified words to make the point that many such words exist? Canon (talk) 16:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

(un-indenting so we don't fall off the page) That's a good point. An introductory few sentences to that effect at the beginning of the Coinages section, with one or two examples (like this one) would be excellent. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Antidisestablishmentarianism

Hmmmm,

Antidisestablishmentarianistic

Antidisestablishmentarianistically

Aaaronsmith (talk) 18:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• Counterantidisestablishmentarianism
• Pseduocounterantidisestablishmentarianism.
• Pseduocounterantidisestablishmentarianistically.

One could go on forever. Its best just to keep the list to words which have seen some usage. --Neil (talk) 11:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The "Constructions" section of the article covers this nicely. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Honorificabilitudinitatibus

I am of the mind that this should be credited as "longest word with alternating vowels and consonants." While the word does appear in Love's Labors Lost it also appeared in other sources before and after Shakespeare wrote it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.22.79.251 (talk) 21:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Why is so? This word is the longest word in shakespeare's work but it doesn't mean it is really the longest, or shakespeare invented it. Besides, Shakespeare is the greatest contributor in English literature. This word deserves its place. Kayau (talk) 04:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

taumata...

Hi. An editor has removed the entry, because apparently it is not an English word. However, it is a place name in an English-speaking country, and we also don't have an article on long non-English words. Since Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch isn't an English word either, does that mean we should have a list of long non-English words, but that might be a bit problematic because we'd have arguments about whether words are "real" words or not, and then we'd have to include words such as nordostersjokustartilleriflygspanningssimulatoranlaggningsmaterielunderhallsuppfoljningssystemdiskussionssinlaggsforberedelsearbeten (but with accents), for which the only source I could find is the Guiness Book of World Records 2006, and then there would be the problem of whether or not we can copy exact definitions, etc, and so this should be discussed? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 00:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The worlds longest word

The longest word in English might be «smiles», but the longest word in the world is the Norwegian word «smile» [smi:lə], to smile. That word has 6¼ miles (Imperial)/10km (metric)/1 mil [mi:l] (Nordic) between the "s" and "e". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.216.169.196 (talk) 14:18, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Another James Joyce coinage

Joyce also coined "contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality" in Ulysses[5], which is intended as an actual word, not an onomatopoeia like "Bababada ... thurnuk". Worth mentioning here?--Theodore Kloba (talk) 19:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

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