[etni] fw: The longest word in English - a summation of the debate
- From: ask@xxxxxxxx
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 09:12:20 -0700
From: "Dr. Natan Ophir" - <natan21@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: The longest word in English - a summation of the debate
It could be a great lesson in class.
Here is some info adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(downloaded this evening, June 3, 2006)
1) The endless debates over which is the longest word in English
demonstrate that the idea of what constitutes a word is not as
straightforward as it seems.
2) The longest word in any major English language dictionary is
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a 45-letter word
supposed to refer to a lung disease, but research has discovered
that this word is a hoax.
3) The longest word which appears in William Shakespeare's works
is the 27-letter honorificabilitudinitatibus, appearing in
Love's Labour's Lost.
This is arguably an English word (rather than Latin), but only
because he used it.
4) The Guinness Book of Records, in its 1992 and subsequent editions,
declared the "longest real word" in the English language to be
floccinaucinihilipilification at 29 letters. Defined as
"the act of estimating (something) as worthless", its usage has
been recorded as far back as 1741. In recent times its usage has
been recorded in the proceedings of the United States Senate by
Senator Jesse Helms, and at the White House by Bill Clinton's
press secretary Mike McCurry, albeit sarcastically. It is the
longest non-technical word in the first edition of the Oxford
English Dictionary.
5) "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is the 34-lettered song
title from the 1964 movie Mary Poppins. As a song title, it is
a proper noun, but the word, and variations, has entered the
English language as an adjective and an adverb. The song describes
using the word as a miraculous way to talk oneself out of difficult
situations, and even as a way to change one's life.
The song appears in the film's animated sequence where Mary Poppins
is harangued by reporters after winning a horse race and responds
to one claiming there are not words to describe her feelings of the
moment. Mary disagrees with that and begins the song about one word
she can use.
The television series The Simpsons had an episode called
Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious", which is a
parody of the Mary Poppins movie. Also in The Simpsons, Professor
Frink refers to supercalifragilistics as a field of science.
6) Antidisestablishmentarianism (a 19th century movement in England
opposed to the separation of church and state) at 28 letters is good
for teaching students a little grammar: "antidisestablishmentarianism"
is an example of a word formed by agglutinative construction. The
stepwise construction is as follows:
establish to set up, put in place, or institute.
dis-establish: ending the established status of a body, in particular
a church, given such status by law, such as the Church of England
disestablish-ment the separation of church and state.
anti-disestablishment opposition to disestablishment
antidisestablishment-arian an advocate of opposition to disestablishment
antidisestablishmentarian-ism the movement or ideology of advocates
of opposition to disestablishment;
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