Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Was just chatting with Yan a couple hours ago, and somehow we came to the topic of the longest words in english.
Lo and behold (kudos to wiki), THE LIST!
The longest word in any of the major English language dictionaries is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a word which refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano. Research has discovered that this word was originally a hoax.
In his play Assemblywomen (Ecclesiazousae), the ancient Greek comedic playwright Aristophanes created a word of 183 letters which describes a dish by stringing together its ingredients:
Lopadotemakhoselakhogameokranioleipsanodrimypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakekhymenokikhlepikossyphophattoperister-alektryonoptokephalliokigklopeleiolagōiosiraiobaphētraganopterýgōn,
Henry Carey's farce Chrononhotonthologos (1743) holds the opening line: "Aldiborontiphoscophornio! Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?"
James Joyce made up nine 101-letter words in his novel Finnegans Wake, the most famous of which is Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk. Appearing on the first page, it allegedly represents the symbolic thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve. As it appears nowhere else except in reference to this passage, it is generally not accepted as a real word.
"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", the 34-letter title of a song from the movie Mary Poppins, does appear in several dictionaries, but only in reference to the song title. The attributed meaning is "a word that you say when you don't know what to say."
"The holy Jah" is a 4.4-million-letter word in "Marienbad My Love" by Mark Leach. It is comprised of pieces of various words from the world's faiths and means "god within".
"Babyoubiquitouse...oiletub" is a 2,087,214-letter word which occupies almost all Nigel Tomm's novel The Blah Story, Volume 10 and means something like a girl or a bitch.
And I thought pengosomokawalaturan was long :)
Thanks to all the blogs i referred to (countless) for html code help :) (esp. cyn' and sixseven)
Adobe Photoshop Elements for supernatural abilities
