The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-02-15
WORD CURIOSlTIES.
Some Remarkable English That Is
Good, but Seldom Used.
New York Press

written, and some other interesting Gu
riosities of Mother English.
Honorifica bilititudinitatibu is a rath-
err long word. You cannot find it in the
dictionary, but you will find it used in
Shakespeare and some of the other ear
ly English writer's. The word is mean
ingless; the only interesting point about
it is its length. Twenty-seven letters
in a breath is quite few. But our die
tionary gives some almost as long: for
instance. the following two. of twenty
four letters each:
Observation-Disclosures
inanthTOpOmOrphisa ability.
Here are some of the other boa con-
strictOrs:
Twenty three letters:
disprOpOrtiOnableness
Twenty-Five:
intercommunicabilitie
Twenty-one:
nterconvertibilities.
Twenty:
histomOrphOlOgically,
MISREPRESENTATION,
upersensitivenesses
hypersensitivenesses
1t is safe to say that the ordinary
1GdQGT WOulQ llOl run OIllO one VI THESE
i'm a 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 i'm one in
telligible sentence without the repetition
of a single letter. Just twenty-siX let
tiers in the following sentence, and no
two alike:
-. @. 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 stuly out the combination
before finding some of them. This sem
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 alphabet 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
cry letter and has the advantage of
making sense.
Here is a list of the longest mono
syllables i'm English:
Seven letters through; eight letters,
strength, thoughts, starched, thrilled,
straight squalled. schnapps; nine let
ters strengths, squelched, scratched,
splotched, stretched.
Probably the most interesting word
curiosity is the one made UP of the
greatest number of other words in the
regular sequence. That word is indis-
elimination. DISCRIMINATION con-
tains 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 sbave six separate
words within the oneg
assassination
assassination
MULTIPLICATION
infinitation.
There do not seem to be any that
can be split up into five sensible parts,
but here are several quads:
in-sat-i-ate
insatiate
ass-as-sin-ate
assassinate
Investigate
investigate
initiate
initiate.
Two three-part words that make
sense when the parts are taken sepa-
rately are:
together
together
in-nO-cent
innocent.
The dictionary is full of funny and
curious things; this is only a small
part of the unusual things that you can
find out about words in an hours peru
sal of the most wordy book in the Eng
lish language.
1.-THE Mousies."
The Creep Mousies' practice at 8
on Saturday in the choir hall.
Some people acquire more foolish
ness in a week than they can get rid
of in a lifetime.
The Witch Behind the Moon.