Topic: Interesting tidbit o' info
Kevology's photo
Fri 03/30/07 12:01 PM
This is kinda neat.

For most of us talking comes pretty easy. If we think of something,
we say it. Concepts considered in our mind become words spoken by our
mouth. However, not every word is easy to say. Some are difficult to
say because hey, they’re difficult to say.
Take for instance pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis (a
lung disease caused by breathing in certain particles). Not only is it
considered, at 45 letters, the longest word in any English-language
dictionary, it’s nearly impossible to pronounce.

Oxford.com has some genuine (if rather obviously deliberate) examples
in their files of antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters) and
floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters), which are listed in some of
their larger dictionaries. Other words (mainly technical ones) recorded
in the complete Oxford English Dictionary include:

otorhinolaryngological (22 letters),
immunoelectrophoretically (25 letters),
psychophysicotherapeutics (25 letters),
thyroparathyroidectomized (25 letters),
pneumoencephalographically (26 letters),
radioimmunoelectrophoresis (26 letters),
psychoneuroendocrinological (27 letters)
hepaticocholangiogastrostomy (28 letters),
spectrophotofluorometrically (28 letters),
pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters).

Most of the words which are given as 'the longest word' are merely
inventions, and when they occur it is almost always as examples of long
words, rather than as genuine examples of use. For example, the medieval
Latin word honorificabilitudinitas (honourableness) was listed by some
old dictionaries in the English form honorificabilitudinity (22
letters), but it has never really been in use. The longest word
currently listed in Oxford dictionaries is the supposed lung-disease
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters).

Research has discovered that
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis was originally intended as
a hoax. It has since been used in a close approximation of its
originally intended meaning, lending at least some degree of validity to
its claim.

The Oxford English Dictionary contains pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism
(30 letters).

Some editions of the Guinness Book of Records mention
praetertranssubstantiationalistically (37 letters), used in Mark
McShane's Untimely Ripped (1963), and
aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic (52 letters),
attributed to Dr Edward Strother (1675-1737).


drinker Neat stuff smokin

Thndrghost's photo
Fri 03/30/07 12:03 PM
I have enough trouble pronouncing some words...those would be impossible
for me laugh laugh laugh grumble ohwell ohwell

mamachris69's photo
Sat 03/31/07 09:34 PM
WHERE DID YOU THINK OF THAT SUBJECT FROM. I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO TRY TO
SAY THOSE WORDS. YOUR CRAZY