Talk:Longest word in English/ Archive 1

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[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] 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?

"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)

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)
      • 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)