Talk:Longest word in English

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The article Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic was nominated for deletion. The debate was closed on 2006-08-27 with a consensus to merge the content into Longest word in English. If the merger is not completed promptly, Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic might be re-nominated for deletion.

To discuss the merger, please use this talk page.
Former FA This article is a former featured article candidate. Please view its sub-page to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Note: There is no category for long words. Do not create one; this has already been discussed at WP:CFD log. Fayenatic london 13:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] 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)

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)

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.

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


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

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

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

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.

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?

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)

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)

[edit] 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".
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)

[edit] 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:
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 Template: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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Strengths longest word?

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)

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)


      • 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)

[edit] 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?

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] No repeated letters.

Surely uncopyrightables beats uncopyrightable. As in those things that cannot be copyrighted? I suppose it is less obviously a word.

[edit] 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)

[edit] Piano words?

Shouldn't there be someting on the words you can make using just the keys of a piano? The longest that I can think of is cabbage or baggage. Freddie 03:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Or, using hyphenation, cabbage-bed or beaded-edge --Nucleusboy 03:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Judgement call, of course, but that strikes me as too trivial. This can be extended ridiculously: How about longest word made of letters that rhyme (c and d and b and e ...) or longest word made of letters that look the same upside-down (o and l and er, uh, um) or longest word made of anagrams of cities, or whatever. Of course, we have some typewriter words, so maybe it's too late to close that door, but I don't think this article should become a bunch of words that exist within whatever odd limitations we can think of. - DavidWBrooks 03:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Know this word?

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

Chemical name for the "Tryptophan Synthetase" protein

methionylglutamin ... larginylserine

I have removed most of the word (shown by the three elipses) 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)

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Syllables

What is the word with the most syllables in English? Why isn't this in the article.

[edit] 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)

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)

[edit] kill that "hippo"

I removed the pretend word hippomonstrospsquipedaliaphobia, that somebody keeps trying to pretend is a real word. It exists in no real dictionaries, and "hippomonstro-" is not a real prefix. - DavidWBrooks 12:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] pronuciations

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Disputed

The article says: The longest "right-handed" word is presumably "hmm", as there are no vowels on the right-hand side.

There are many words longer than "hmm" with no vowels in them, and "hmm" isn't really a word anyway. Could someone please check what the longest word typable with the right hand on a Dvorak keyboard actually is? Or would that be original research?

Jibjibjib 07:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

What on earth is wrong with the edit I made about right handed words? Crwth is a word used in English and Crwths would merely be the plural.

 Crwth comes up on m-w.com, dictionary.com, and wiktionary.com.

[edit] 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?

[edit] 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)
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