The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-02-13
WORD CURIOSITIES.
Some Remarkable English That Is
Good, but Seldom Used.
New York Press.

| Mark Twain has something to say
about English as She Is Written" but
here is some English that seldom is
written. and some other interesting Gu
| riOsities of Mother English
| HOnOrifca bilititudinitatibus is a rath-
er long word. You cannot find it in the
| dictionary, but you will fiRd it used in
] Shakespeare and some of the other ear
/ ly English writer's. The word is mean
inSless; the only interesting point about
! it is its length. Twenty-seven letters
in a breath is quite a few But our die
| tionary gives some almost as 10 e: for
instance, the following two, of twenty
four lett8s each:
FransubstantiatiOn
inanthropOmorphisa bility
Here are some of the other boa con-
stTictOrs:
Twenty-three letters:
ispTOportiOnab lenesses
Twenty-Five:
intercOmmunicabiIiti
Twenty-one:
ntercOnvertibilities.
Twenty:
histOmOrpholOgically
MISREPRESENTATION,
suDersensitiVenesses
hypeTsensitivenesses
reader would not run onto one of these
in hundred years-and if he did he
would run the other way.
1t is interesting to know that the en-
tire alphabet can be arranged in one in
telligible sentence without the repetition
of single letter. Just twenty-six let
tiers in the following sentence, and no
two alike:
y. Q. vandz struck my big fox
whelp."
That simple sentence is the hardest
possible one to write on the typewriter;
so many of the letters in the alphabet
are used so seldom that even a good
typist has to study out the combination
before finding some of them. This SEN
tence is the only known one that con-
tainS every letter in the alphabet but
once and makes sense.
Another interesting word group. in
which the entire alpha bet is put into
seven words, and only thirty-two letters
are used, is: burst, fed, jingle, quip,
vim, hack, zyxomma." This is the
smallest number of words that the al
phabet can be included in.
Two Ineligible sentences, however.
of eight words and thirty-two letters
apiece have been found. They are:
Quick brown fox jumps over the
lazy dog"
Pack my box with five dozen liquor
jugs"
The first sentence is often used in |
testing the types on typewriters. on |
account of the fact that it includes ev- !
cry letter and has the advantage of |
making sense.
Here is a list of the longest mono |
syllables in English:
Seven letters, through; eight letters
ST ran crfa cta III
squalled. schnapps: nine let
tiers. strengths, squelched, scratched,
splotched, stretched.
Probably the most interesting word
is the one made up of the
greatest. number of other words in the
regular sequence. That word is indis-
In-disc-Tim- in-at-i-on con-
Lains seven words and is only sixteen
letters long; that is allowing a frac-
ton more than two letters to each
word, and only one. word is repeated.
Here are two that have six separate
words within the one:
ass-ass-in-at-i-on
assassination
in-fin-it-at-i-On
infinitation.
There do not seem to be any that
IAN be split up into five sensible parts.
)ut here are several Quads:
in-sat-i-ate
insatiate
asS-aS-sin-ate
aSsdSsinate
Investigate
investigate
in-it-i-ate
initiate.
Two three-Dart words that make ,
ense when the parts are taken sepa-
ately are:
together q
together ]
in-nO-cent
innocent
The dictionary is full of funny and ,
urious things5 this is only a small :
art of the unusual things that you can :
ind out about words in an hours peru ;
al of the most wordy book in the Eng {
sh language.