Talk:Longest word in English/Archive 1

message: To my ears, Longest English word sounds less awkward than Longest word in English.  Objections? --Delirium 01:03, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)
:Yes, I object. There are "English words" which are not "in English". --Phil | Talk 10:33, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)
::But isn't this whole encyclopedia "in English"? anthony (see warning) 11:13, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer the current title - "English" in "longest English word" could mean "of the country England" as well as "of the English language" - whereas "English" in "longest word in English" could only mean the language - DavidWBrooks 12:58, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article title? 

message: I rolled back the joke about a "mile" being in the middle of the word "smiles" ... somebody had changed it to "similes"?!? Aside from the fact that I've never heard that version, it ruins the (admittedly feeble) joke, because the word "mile" is not pronounced in the middle of "sim-ill-ee". - DavidWBrooks 01:41, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Antidisestablishmentarianism is better-known. --Carnildo 06:00, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  joke: similes???

message: "Strengths" isn't the longest English word: "screeched" is the same length.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daveincambridge (talk • contribs) 18:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it sufficiently English for inclusion? --Carnildo 17:50, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is it even a word in English? Borscht is used as both singular and plural, like fish or sheep. "He served three kinds of borscht for lunch" not "He served three borschts for lunch" (or borschtchs) - DavidWBrooks 17:54, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Three kinds of borscht" wouldn't warrant the plural form, though. --brian0918™ 18:47, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strengths longest word? 

message: Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 <-- one of the most bizarre Wikipedia articles.  Also a very long word. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:57, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just in case you didn't know 

message: logology redirects here. Why? Does it mean the study of this? Does it mean the same thing? Could somebody please clarify this and perhaps integrate such a thing into this article? --Fastfission 15:40, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Logology is the scientific study of words . A pretty fuzzy concept; I can't really understand in what context one would use it. Anyway, it appears that the original page consisted of one of the long words mentioned in this article (which I suppose is related to logology), and somebody made a redirect. Although I doubt there will be an article on the subject of logology any time soon, the redirect shouldn't be there. EldKatt (Talk) 16:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've changed it from a redirect into a very short article. Maybe it should just be a wiktionary entry. - DavidWBrooks 16:41, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good. Confining it to Wiktionary is quite possible, but there's the chance that the Wikipedia article can be improved. That's a very slim chance, though, I guess, so I'm positive to it. By the way, do you know/have any sources mentioning more exactly what it means, and in what context it is used? Is it about letter patterns in the same sense that phonology is about sound patterns? EldKatt (Talk) 17:31, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

text: I googled and found several listings of Dmitri Borgmann books with the word, as well as a reference by Richard Lederer to Borgmann's having adopted the word to its recreational emphasis. - DavidWBrooks 01:20, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Logology?

message: As of 2005, the longest genuine station name in the UK (i.e. one not specifically designed to beat a record) is the newly-reopened Rhoose station. While not actually being a single word, to emphasise its proximity to the local airport (around 3 miles), it was renamed Rhoose Cardiff International Airport — 33 letters in all.
Seems we've come rather a long way from the subject of the article here. This is supposed to be Longest word in English, not Longest genuine station name in the UK. Flapdragon 17:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur, as it doesn't come close to being a "long word" in any category. EldKatt (Talk) 19:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  railway stations 

message: Dunno if it's been said before, or I missed something incredibly obvious, but by adding the prefix of psuedo to Antidisestablishmentarianism would lengthen it. Are prefixes not considered to be valid ways of extending a word? Is it simply a matter of uncertainty whether psuedoantidisestablishmentarianism is a valid word (It is, I'm fairly sure)? 203.51.102.148 (talk) 15:03, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefixes? 

message: encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis is longer than pseudopseudohypothyroidism.  They are both tecnical terms.  The latter is a sugery treatment for Moyamoya disease.  Still not the longest word, but interesting none the less because it is actually used in the medical world.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.35.220.29 (talk) 15:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis is longer...

message: Re: anti/dis/e/stabl/ish/ment/ari/an/ism/
/ism/ should be two morphemes: /is/m/. /is/ corresponds to the verbal suffix -ize and /m/ is a nominal suffix meaning result. 
"The result (-m) of the act (-is-) of one who (-an) opposes (anti-) what pertains to (-ari) the result (-ment) of making (-ish) institutions (stabl-) completely (e-) separate (dis-)  --Fulminouscherub 23:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Although I can't claim to be an expert, I'm dubious. Dictionary.com (well, The American Heritage Dictionary) says that -ism is ultimately from Greek -ismos, -ize from Greek -izein. The connection isn't obvious enough for me to accept it without a source. EldKatt (Talk) 15:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't go based on what may or may not be a morpheme in some other language. "ism" is one morpheme in English. Furthermore, the "ish" in "establish" cannot be considered its own morpheme as stated in the article, because the "ish" suffix can only be used to create adjectives, and "establish" is a verb. I'm going to clean up some of the overzealous morpheme breaks in that section. -Branddobbe 08:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  morphemes 

message: The word "Twyndyllyngs" looks very Welsh. I wonder if it's really an English language word. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.96.149.183 (talk • contribs) , at 21:46, 15 December 2005.
:I wasn't able to find it in the Oxford English Dictionary. --Carnildo 00:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I mentioned in an edit summary , the word is not Welsh, and yes it is in the OED. It is listed as an alternative spelling at twinling ("twin"). But really this just demonstrates the futility of dividing letters into vowels and consonants without reference to the sounds they represent in different words. If the same word was spelt "twindillings" we would have no interest in it for this purpose. So it's a pretty spurious and unenlightening victory.  Flapdragon 01:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Twyndyllyngs

message: http://www.englishforums.com/English/LongestWordEnglishLanguage/2/jh/Post.htm
Chemical name for the "Tryptophan Synthetase A" protein
methionylglutamin ... larginylserine 
: I have removed most of the word (shown by the elipse) because its length was messing up some browsers, and note that the article discusses how biological and chemical names can be extended almost indefinitely. - DavidWBrooks 23:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Know this word? 

message: * I really like this article, theoretically, it is interesting and contains a lot of information, but i am adding a clean-up tag because it is not structured very well and large chunks of it contain just one-line paragraphs, and there is widespread spontaneous bolding throughout the article for no reason. Doesn't need a lot of cleaning up, but needs some just the same. Jdcooper 16:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clean-up 

message: :According to some, the longest word is the "word" after the sentence "And now, a word from our sponsors," because in radio advertisements, this phrase is conventionally followed by a rapid string of explanation equivalent to fine print in paper ads.
I believe this is a misinterpretation of the joke. The joke is that "And now, a word from our sponsors" could be followed by two minutes or so of commercials, and a "word" that took two minutes to say would be quite a long word.
There are indeed radio commercials, typically for cars, that end with rapid strings of explanations on the order of "All new car prices plus tax, title, license and document fee, all rebates and incentives assigned to dealer. Payments for 84 months at 7% APR financing with no money down to qualified buyers. Offer expires tomorrow." but such an explanation would not immediately follow the phrase "And now, a word from our sponsors"; it would follow the main content of the commercial. --Metropolitan90 02:24, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A word from our sponsor 

message: The word pneumono­ultra­microscopic­silico­volcano­coniosis, also spelled pneumono­ultra­microscopic­silico­volcano­koniosis [...] is certainly the longest word ever to appear in a non-technical dictionary of English, Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary (multiple editions). However, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes it as "an entirely factitious word," and the Encyclopedia Britannica does not have an entry for it.
There doesn't seem to be an entry for it in OED2. Is this quote from the online edition, or where? Flapdragon 17:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I used to own several copies of the Guiness Book of World Records stretching as far back as the 50s and in some of the older books they mention this 45 letter word . It is said to be a miner's lung disease. They also mention a word containing about +/- 150 letters denoting a three day old ghoulash listed as the longest word in literature. By the way, is floccinaucinihillipillification mentioned in this article? Dessydes 23:28, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aside from being prominently mentioned, directly underneath the paragraph about this word, no. - DavidWBrooks 23:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

text: That seems odd, considering that it gets no hits on Google. --Nucleusboy 19:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pneumono­ultra­microscopic­silico­volcano­coniosis 

message: I had to remove this sentence "The name for human mitochondrial DNA is more than 207,000 letters long. Some types of DNA could have as many as a billion letters if fully written out."
I was just pinged as a vandal for doing so, but I have reremoved it for the following reasons:
1) DNA sequence is not English, it uses latin characters as abbreviations for nucleotide order
2) The DNA sequence of a gene is not its name, for example we call human insulin "insulin" and not "gctgcatcag aagaggccat caagcacatc actgtccttc tgccatggcc ctgtggatgc gcctcctgcc cctgctggcg ctgctggccc tctggggacc tgacccagcc gcagcctttg tgaaccaaca cctgtgcggc tcacacctgg tggaagctct ctacctagtg tgcggggaac gaggcttctt ctacacaccc aagacccgcc gggaggcaga ggacctgcag gtggggcagg tggagctggg cgggggccct ggtgcaggca gcctgcagcc cttggccctg gaggggtccc tgcagaagcg tggcattgtg gaacaatgct gtaccagcat ctgctccctc taccagctgg agaactactg caactagacg cagcccgcag gcagcccccc acccgccgcc tcctgcaccg agagagatgg aataaagccc ttgaaccagc"
3) Even if by this dubious definition the sequence is actually a word, it is a word in which every letter has to be seperately pronounched (ie cat is c a t not "cat"), and in fact has never been said by a human.
4) If you were to include DNA sequence as a word, human mtDNA would be one of the shortest "words" around
5) As a "word" it could be read in two different directions with two different strands, it is different for every human, and the mtDNA genome is circular, so there is no beginning or end to the word.
In other words, this sentence had no place in the article. 
(as added by 24.18.228.58)
I hear what you say, but I always thought of the long word in this sense as the (one of the strands of) DNA's systematic name, a bit like cytosino-adenino-thymino-adenine (hyphens added for clarity) or however it's probably named by IUPAC or similar, like the peptides mentioned above. Though these probably have numbers in, so may be invalid (like the arsenical above in a different place). To be fair, I'm not convinced that these are useful "longest words" to have (your point 4) as you can always add another base, or amino acid to the end or beginning, a bit like although infinity is the largest number, infinity + 1 is larger still - also alluded to by DavidWBrooks, above.
86.130.139.201 09:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mitochondrial DNA 

message: The reference given for the scrabble section is a non-existent book. I've updated the Gyles Brandreth bibliography with some amazon listings, so it's probably one of the 3 scrabble books mentioned there, but I don't know which. -Quiddity 23:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, perfect. Thanks :) (I should've checked abebooks. All i checked was amazon and libcongress. But having the original work is even better.) -Quiddity 18:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

text: ulated is not a word xenocidic (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

text: A number of short words placed perpendicularly along the target location for the long word should do the trick, as long as they miss the bonus squares. Canon 16:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  scrabble 

message: In British usage, it would be 106(6560) = 1039360.
the open ended naming system for powers of ten needs a link to that page (there is one, but i cant remember where) and there also needs to be an explanation of the suggestion, above, that the british numbering would be different. surely the systematic system developed did not have a distinction in what the number-words mean based on your geographical origin? 83.99.8.27 12:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The "-illion" suffix presumably suggests "billion", which means a different quantity to British and American people IIRC. Dysprosia 12:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  british usage numbers 

message: I love this word so much as it is so ironic...
Meaning:  Fear of long words
36 letters... I think that would be the longest, unless it's a "...volcanoconeosis" one, where it's not "real".
What do you think?  --Retailmonica 16:31, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The word is mentioned in sections 2 and 24 in this talk page, and there seems to be a consensus against including it in the article. It's about as real as pneumo­noultra­microscopic­silico­volcano­coniosis, only far less notable. EldKatt (Talk) 15:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether it tickles somebody's funnybone or not, it's not used enough (if at all, aside from a persistent poster) to be noted, as is pneumon(etc). Find some other way to get it into the public consciousness. - DavidWBrooks 21:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It returned Dec. 9. It's hard to keep a bad hippo down ... - DavidWBrooks 00:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And again Feb. 7, 2007 ... sigh. - DavidWBrooks 18:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And again March. 27. You have to admire such persistence - sort of. - DavidWBrooks 17:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And again June 20. - DavidWBrooks 13:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. It might not be mentioned enough, but hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian is a real word. It's mentioned along with antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification, in a book called YOU ASKED FOR IT! by Marg Meikle,  , page 146. Why doesn't it have an article when both of the other ones do? Should it be included? Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 20:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Try again, hippomonstrososesquipedelian is in fact a real word, in a real dictionary.  Agree the addition of the "-phobia" suffix is false.  Ref. Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, wherein antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification are also mentioned.  Amazon for book: http://www.amazon.com/Byrnes-Dictionary-Unusual-Obscure-Preposterous/dp/0806504986  dunerat (talk) 06:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but that's exactly the sort of non-useful reference mentioned above - a book that lists funny/weird/goofy "words" without much in the way of references; the more it includes, the better it sells, which isn't much of an incentive for rigor. Antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification exist in actual usage, not just in lists compiled for entertainment value. That's the difference, and it's a big one.- DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:31, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is reference.com an authoritative enough dictionary for you? http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia Zelbinian (talk) 08:03, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That certainly seems much better! One minor question - it's part of Ask.com, so are some terms user-submitted? I ask because this definition says the following at the bottom:
 Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7)
 Copyright © 2003-2008 Dictionary.com, LLC 
whereas an obviously real world says this:
 Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
 Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
Note that the latter gives a source, whereas the "hippo ..." word doesn't. That doesn't mean it's wrong, of course, but it makes me wonder. "Preview edition" - is that like a beta test dictionary? (Note, by the way, that the term Webster's is no copyrighted for dictionaries, so it can be used by anybody. It doesn't necessarily mean a connection with an existing dictionary publisher.) - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia 

message: In the Bangkok article it gives the full name of Bangkok as a list of separate words when translated into English.  If this is the most correct way to transliterate this name, then it is not qualified to be considered a single long word.  Any Thai/English speakers who can clarify the issue? Canon 23:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been a month since I last asked this question: Are we sure that the multi-word Thai name of Bangkok really transliterates into a single English word?  If we don't hear in the affirmative from a Thai/English speaker within the next month, I'll remove that word from the article. Canon 02:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an article about longest single words, not longest names made up of multiple words.  If we start listing longest multi-word names we're going to have to list people who have 100 words in their name and so on.  Canon 18:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The boundary between a single word and multiple words is disputed; see Word#Difficulty in defining the term. --Damian Yerrick (☎) 21:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Admittedly many compounds are sometimes written open and sometimes closed, as in Bang Kok versus Bangkok.  But in this case the long Thai name is many words that look a lot more like a sentence than a word, so I think it falls outside of the grey area. Canon 21:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree. I think longest name is a separate concept from longest word and probably deserves its own article. Canon 21:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I have removed the entire section, for the reasons given above - this is about "longest word" (singular) and the section concerned "longest multi-word names" (plural). - DavidWBrooks 12:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bangkok 

message: I propose a longer word, the base word of antidisestablishmentary
Wouldn't the study of it be antidisestablishmentariology.  and the person studying it be an antidisestablishmentarianologist.
Thus there are 2 longer words than stated, even though they are derived from the same root.
:As pointed out in the article, there is no limit to the length of potential words in English, since English can form compound words by adding prefixes or suffixes.  However, to move from being a potential word to being an actual word, a word has to be used in a variety of contexts.  Relatively few of the potential words satisfy this criterion.  Those that do usually make it into a dictionary. Canon 20:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, I was looking over some antichrist/rapture/other religious garbage stuff before I came to this article. Another good 29 letter word which subsequently brought me here:
hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia –
the fear of the number 666. Considering this is actually a common condition in the western world, I'd say it deserves a mention. AeoniosHaplo 08:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The condition being common is not the same as the word being common; is there a major English dictionary that contains it? Canon 14:48, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Would like to see this proven as a common condition anywhere.  Pretty sure that while [Triskaidekaphobia] is fairly common, hexakosio... is not.dunerat (talk) 06:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed compound word 

message: Heres one for you - Methylethylisothiazolinone, its a compound used in shampoo, that one you can look up yourself. I think i got the whole lot, it actually looks shorter on here than on the bottle.... (im at work and cant actually LOOK at a bottle of shampoo mind you) Squad'nLeedah 15:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shampoo 

message: The paragraph on flocci­nauci­nihili­pili­fication, right after talking about Mike McCurry saying flocc..., it says "At 22 letters (including the okina) it is one of the best known very long one-word names for an animal. It is occasionally quipped that the name is longer than the fish.".  I assume there's supposed to be a new paragaraph and word, but I don't know what it is. - Webrunner 18:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem was an unmatched ref tag, which I fixed.  I hope nothing else was lost. Canon 20:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing Fish 

message: According to The Top 10 of Everything 2000, by Russell Ash, the longest word is 1909 letters long. Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucyl...serine. It is an enzyme. The full word is typed out in the book for sure, and a person on this thread has typed out something that certainly looks similar, although their may be errors. The second longest word in this list is 1189 letters long. Both of those words are referenced here, but a different number of letters is mentioned in the book I am looking at. The third one on the list is less technical, it is a word that medieval scribes used to describe a deluded human who took part in supersticious practices. Once again, a weblink that is unreliable as a source is the best I can find, but this book is surely reliable? The next word is a 17 ingredient dish, the word appeared as a translation from a Greek book, and that word is mentioned at the Assemblywomen article. The others are also pretty long, but I have run out of steam! J Milburn 17:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Once you start including chemical names, words can get arbitrarily long.  Methylwhatsit isn't that long as such things go. --Carnildo 00:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It has appeared in print. However, I agree with you. What about the other words I mentioned? J Milburn 14:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Top Ten of Everything 2000 as a potential source? 

message: Hi. What about "micropachycephalosaurus"? It's the longest dinosaur name, at 23 letters. Is it noteworthy, and should it be in the article? Thanks. AstroHurricane001(Talk+Contribs+Ubx) 23:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And what about the longest insect name? The longest mammal name? The longest amphibian name? The longest tree name? The longest grass name? The longest ... well, you get the point. (In other words, no.) - DavidWBrooks 01:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  suggestion 

message: I found this word on a website, while i was doing a spelling bee:
methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglysylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylyalylthreonylleucylglcycylaspartylprolylglicylisoleucyglutamylglutaminlserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleuleucylproluylphenylalanyserylaspartyprolylleucelalanylaspartyllglycylprolylthreonylisolleucyglutaminylasparaginylalanythreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglglutamylmethionylleucyalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolyuthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasbaraginylleucylvalylphenylalanylsparaginyyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanylyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylspartylserylvalylleucylvallalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalvlglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalalrginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalalprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinlprolyprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartyspartyleucylleucylarginylglutaminlisoleucylalanylseryltyroslglycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginlalanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylanylalanylleucylprolylleucylaspaaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagimylalnylalanyprolylprlylleucylglutaminylglycylphenlalanylglycylisoleyucylserylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalnylalanylisoleucylalspartylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylasoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylbalyllysylisoleuvylisoleuvylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpronylglutamyllysylmethionylluevylalanylalanyoeucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutamilylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine
Is it a true word? And does anyone know how to pronounce it? But it is obviously not in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.197.178.161 (talk) 02:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you read the article and this talk page carefully? `'mikka 02:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Longest Word 

message: The reason for the subheading "Major dictionaries" was to provide a criterion by which words were included in the section at the top of the article.  Unfortunatley I now predict that without the subheading there will be many additions of non-dictionary long words there. Canon 16:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps we should return it, then, over the Websters and OED entries, leaving Shakespeare and the fish under the current new heading. In fact, Ill do that and see how it goes. - DavidWBrooks 17:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just had to delete a redundancy added by a new user to the "Other notable long words" section, perhaps because it is unclear if this section refers to "long words that are notable" or "notable words that are long."  By the way, the Shakespearean and Roman coinages are dictionary words.  I'm not sure about the Hawaiian fish.  Canon 21:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that "notable" heading is pretty vague, a sort of hangover from a much-earlier version of the page. Maybe we should just kill them, or put them under "trivia" or something like that. The "dictionary" list is supposed to be, I think, the longest word in each of a couple of highly reputable dictionaries. In fact, there are large chunks of this page that really don't belong under the title "longest" - more like "wicked long words" or something. Almost more suitable for English words with uncommon properties, although that article is groaningly over-long already. - DavidWBrooks 21:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, that whole section could be deleted since it is redundant with the "uncommon properties" article.  On the other hand, I think the "Major dictionaries" section should include words that are commonly considered longest and which of course are in major dictionaries, which I would say includes the "antid-" word, the Shakespearean coinage, and the long fish name (which is right on the dividing line and only makes it in because it is frequently mentioned in articles on the subject).  The "sesqui-" word could be lost since it's a bit of humor that invites people to contribute their own favorite joke. Canon 22:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major dictionaries 

message: The comment that typewriter is not the longest word on the top row of a qwerty keyboard takes account of North American usage only. The word Teetertotter? is largely unknown outside of the US.  --Brideshead 19:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: teetertotter?

message: I have not found the first two longest words anywhere... is this a hoax???????! Kopf1988 19:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anyone got proof? 

message: The fear of the number 666 is pretty long... i think about 30 letters. ∆ Algonquin 13:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Should we include every very long, mildly interesting word in the English language? The title of this article is not Really long words in the English language - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fear of 666 - [[Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia]]

message: This passage:
:"The longest published word is the mathematical pattern abacaba...z...abacaba, a fractal word containing 67,108,863 characters. The pattern is constructed as follows: A, aBa, abaCaba, abacabaDabacaba, etc.  The word occupies four 400-page volumes and is also the name of a character in a children's story."
...seems extremely dubious to me, so I removed it. (1) There obviously cannot be a children's story with a character with a name over 16 million letters long, (2) four 400-page volumes? Somebody printed these? Unlikely (3) It's just a pattern, not a word, and would have unpronounceable parts. Herostratus 11:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your removal didn't go through, so I removed it; exactly agree with (1) and (3).  (2) is possible.  There are fractal music compositions recorded which take several hours to perform, so someone could have published a four-volume set of letters.  But agreed, just because it has letters and no spaces doesn't make it a word.  -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 13:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also by my calculation, that "word" is only 33,554,431 characters long.  I think whoever wrote that assumed they would start with 1 and then have 26 iterations of n_{i+1} = 2n_{i} + 1, but actually there are only 25 such iterations. JulesH 19:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Ignore me.  The python function 'xrange()' produces a non-inclusive range, not an inclusive one.  My mistake. JulesH 20:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  da hell? 

message: Squirrelled, anybody?  Pronounced sk + world --Nricardo 02:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That might be how you pronounce it, but it's far from universal. JulesH 19:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Longest Monosyllabic 

message: Hi. I was reading a ripley's believe it or not book, and it turns out there is this one very long word. According to the book, it is a 309-letter long word, correctly spelt by 9-year-old Aaron Zweig of Randolph, New Jersy. It says it was used in the Medieval times to describe someone who can predict the future. Hopefully this does not push copyright restrictions, but if it does not, then here is the word:
Ornicopytheobibliopsychocrystarroscioaerogenethliometeoroaustrohieroanthropoichthyopyrosiderochpnomyoalectryoophiobotanopegobydrorhabdocrithoaleuroalphitohalomolybdoclerobeloaxinocoscinodactyliogeolithopessopsephocatoptrotephraoneirochiroonychodactyloarithstichooxogeloscogastrogyrocerobletonooenosapulinaniac.
So, should it be added? It does have a relatively reliable source. If you need an exact citation, then here it is, if nessecary: book, title: Ripley's Believe It or Not!®: Special Edition 2007, , (read in North America, "Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available"). It's got a word, and a citation, so should it be added? Is there any chance it's already there? Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 18:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ripley's Believe It or Not is not a citation for this word; it seems that they are reporting on a spelling bee and the people who created the word list for the spelling bee presumably have a citation.  This is the citation that needs to be tracked down.  Otherwise this may be a hoax.  Canon 20:46, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks clearly made up to me.  It consists of a bunch of common latin and greek based prefixes, joined together with '-o-' and then '-sapulinaniac' at the end.  The prefixes don't seem even approximately related, and few of them seem plausibly connected with the claimed meaning.  What, if anything, does "aero-" have to do with future predicting?  "dactylio-"?  "gastro-"? JulesH 19:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'used in mediaeval times' part seems particularly odd... given that 99% of the population couldn't read or write and the other 1% wouldn't have been able to pay a scribe to write something that long. --Nucleusboy 19:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can find it under Google by looking for "310 letters" (e.g. http://xo.typepad.com/blog/2004/11/img_alt_srchttp_174.html ).  It's recent origin can be traced back to Russell Ash's "Top 10 of Everything" books.  According to Russell it was published in Robert Ripley, 'The Omnibus Believe it or Not!' (London: C. Arthur Pearson - undated, but c.1935), page 276, but he and I now think this is probably someone playing a prank on Ripley, because Russell checked with a medievalist who said, basically, there is no way this could be a word used in the middle ages -- it doesn't parse, words were no longer then than they are now, and it isn't even proper transliterated Latin. Maybe it was motivated by the appearance of P45 that same year.  Canon (talk) 21:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  very, very long medieval word 

message: In the scrabble section, scores are given for the two words mentioned that assume the score is tripled three times if the word is played across three triple word scores.  However, I can't see any way that this is possible.  You only score bonuses for the tiles you play in a turn, not the tiles that are already on the board.
:Pretty sure that's not true.. While I don't have the rules in front of me, but I'm pretty sure that if, for example, you put an "S" on the end of a word, and that S is on a double word score, you get double points for every letter in the word. Now, if you're point is that scrabble scores are completely off-topic in an article allegedly about the longest word in English, then I certainly agree. -R. fiend 21:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, there is that.  But the point I was making is that if the word you're placing the 'S' on has a tile on a double word score, you don't double it again.  It isn't possible to play tiles on all 3 of the triple word scores at the same time, so the score described is impossible. JulesH 18:06, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This came up nearer the top of the talk page... if the spaces between the triples were bridged by words going the other way, you could just fill in the gaps and get all three triples, for the win. --Nucleusboy 19:36, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Maybe it's meant to be construed as "containing equal parts of salt, calcium, wax, aluminum, copper, and sulphuric acid". Come to think of it, how does spa water get wax or sulphuric acid in it without killing the bathers? --Nucleusboy 19:36, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A couple of comments 

message: I have archived all the Talk in which the entire conversation ended in 2005 or earlier - so some conversations are still here that began in 2005 or earlier, if they continued in 2006 or later. This is still a hefty Talk page, but it's not quite so enormous now. - DavidWBrooks 12:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive 1 

message: I removed the sentence:
*Twyndyllyngs is the longest word without any of the common vowel letters a, e, i, o, or u (although w and y function as vowels in this word).
This is spurious - the word is Welsh, not English, so English vowel rules don't apply. W and Y are vowels in Welsh. EyeSereneTALK 10:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: With respect, that's not true; twyndyllyng is found in the Oxford English Dictionary, as a variant spelling of twinling (see this). Thefamouseccles 23:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't access that link (requires registration), but I'll defer to your expertise ;) EyeSereneTALK 12:16, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Twyndyllyngs 

message: If you look at the article, you will find that they found the word in an old version of wikipedia. Since wikipedia should not source itself, you need to find another article that sources it (be careful, other ones sourcing wikipedia could be copycatting, so look for ones with a scientific source). I am going ahead and removing it from the article until a proper source is found. --Kyle112 22:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This article acknowledges that there are competing standards for what is a word: dictionary entries, place names, technical terms, coinages, and so forth.  Long chemical names are a special case of the technical term standard, which is justified by listings in Guinness and various word puzzle books.  One of these works claims that the 1185-letter name was listed in Chemical Abstracts in 1972, but Google Books has a reference to both this and the 1913-letter chemical name in Word Ways in 1968, so the practice of listing these as examples of long words predates 1972.  On the other hand, no professional lexicographer would put any of them in a dictionary, because they are not used by chemists.  The single listing of the 1185-letter name in Chemical Abstracts in 1972 is insufficient evidence for dictionary inclusion.  But that is irrelevant because we're not using the lexicographer's criteria to judge technical terms.  Technical terms are judged on technical grounds.  As such, the 189,819-letter chemical name for titin is the longest because titin is the longest protein. Canon 14:43, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The 189000 letter word or whatever is not properly sourced and should not be featured 

message: : "Because sesquioxidizing has the high-scoring Q and Z, it would score 62 × 27 = 1674 if played across an edge of the board with three triple word squares and two double letter squares involved. This is possible by the first player laying 'ox', the second player adding 'idizing' and the first player adding 'sesqui' to the beginning."
This is wrong.  If "oxidizing" has already been placed, then adding "sesqui" to the beginning will score only 156.  Two of the triple word squares and one double letter square will have have already been covered and so don't count again.  To achieve 1674, the initial S, Q, X, Z and G must all be laid down on the same turn. -- Smjg 00:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sesquioxidizing 

message: There is a word in the Oxford English Dictionary which has the meaning along the lines of "a very long word". What word is this? I am sure it should be included in here. Simply south 15:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The word is monstrososesquipedelian, defined as "pertaining to a very long word."  Lack of usage, however, would probably preclude it from entry here.  Likewise, hippomonstrososesquipedelian, "pertaining to a very, very long word."dunerat (talk) 07:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That is false. The word you are looking for is "sesquipedalian," which etymologically comes from "foot-and-a-half." This word is four hundred years old and listed in several major dictionaries. On the other hand, "monstrosesquipedalian" doesn't even return results on google independent of the word "hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian," which is even more ridiculous. "Monstro-" is not a real prefix, and nor is "hippopoto-." "Hippo-" is perhaps real, but relates to horses, not hippopotomi. The word appears to have been coined in Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous words, as no earlier reference has been found by its avid supporters on this talk page.  Eebster the Great (talk) 03:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: I HAVE found the long almost 200000 letter word in a school dictionary but I forget which one. Djf2014 17:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  One thing... 

message: "'Smiles' is humorously considered to be the longest word, as there is a mile between the two 's'es. However, by this reckoning 'beleaguered' would be the longest, as it contains a league, which is about three miles"
Yeah, and taut has an au between the ts. And flyswatter has a ly between the f and the swatter. . . . I can see including the smiles reference, because that is a classic old joke, but I'm not sure any "improvements" are necessary.  They may even be considered OR. Emoll (talk) 19:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (Not to mention cupcake [with a pc] and caMpcraft [with a Mpc].)  Emoll (talk) 21:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Unfortunately I think this falls under WP:ILIKEIT, but, well, I liked that sentence. Could we add in a sentence saying something akin to 'of course by this logic, a word with a large unit of distance would be ever longer.' - maybe giving an example of two in a footnote? --Neo (talk) 08:18, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done (all within the footnote). Emoll (talk) 19:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Aha! I found a published source for beleaguered, so that's back in.  Also added the Red Skelton joke about "a word from our sponsor." Emoll (talk) 15:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beleaguered? 

message: I didn't see Repertoire (should be listed with perpetuity, proprietor, and typewriter)
'perl -nle 'print if /^[qwertyuiop]+$/i && length >= 10'  /usr/share/dict/words
''''''
DavidDyck (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repertoire - addition to longest top row typewritten word 

message: I'm no Scrabble expert, but wouldn't it be possible to have 8 of its 15 letters already on the board, none of them on bonus squares, and place the other 7 letters, thus getting credit for the entire word plus all the bonuses? Canon (talk) 17:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That sort of debate is why I removed the portion of the section about high scores; this was turning into a Scrabble article. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:04, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the entire section of "long words with certain properties" should be moved to the article on "words with unusual properties" (which is itself a mess, but that is another subject).  However, the question I ask above is not debateable since it is based on the well-defined rules of Scrabble.  I don't know the answer, but someone who has access to a Scrabble set should be able to give a definitve answer.  Just because someone is willing to debate something doesn't mean it is not knowable or should not be (somewhere) in an encyclopedia.  That position would be to hold the encyclopedia hostage to aggressive ignorance. Canon (talk) 21:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure - just not in this article. Did you ask in the Talk at Scrabble?- DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My point is not whether it is true, it is whether it is knowable.  In this case it seems to me that the answer is knowable. I can determine that without knowing the answer.  Or at least I can determine that it appears to be likely that it is knowable.  I worry that if we delete knowable information from the encyclopedia because someone wishes to debate it, then we are setting a dangerous precedent.  Canon (talk) 15:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps I'm not understanding you. Legitimate information is deleted all the time in wikipedia because it's inappropriate to the article, and rightly so. Otherwise articles turn into a mish-mash of barely related stuff. I removed several lines about Scrabble scoring from this article beause I thought we were venturing too far afield from the topic. That doesn't strike me as terribly dangerous. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:01, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There were two issues, but I think one is resolved.  The question of what is the highest scoring word in Scrabble is something people are likely to want to know, and we now appear to agree that it is knowable.  It is something that is not easy to think clearly about.  For these reasons it is information that should be in Wikipedia somewhere.  Because Wikipedia is assembled by volunteers, it is not well organized.  The information was put in this article because someone thought that this was the logical place for it.  This at least makes it available via a search engine, so that is a good thing.  It probably could better go somewhere else, but I don't think it's a good thing to delete it from one place without also putting it in the better place. Canon (talk) 16:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I look forward to you placing it in the an article where it is appropriate. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved the entire Scrabble paragraph including the deleted text to the English words with uncommon properties article and replaced it with a link. Canon (talk) 18:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Thanks User:Zginder.  As long as we're on the subject, I reiterate that the paragraph that I moved makes the seemingly incorrect claim that the 15-letter words cannot be played in one move.  Could someone please explain why 7 letters of these 15-letter words could not be placed on the bonus squares between 8 previously placed letters? Canon (talk) 19:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It likely would not be possible (or at least, barely feasible), because it doesn't look possible to get enough small words and parts down on the right locations with the make-up of the letters in the board, as it were. Killervogel5 (talk) 15:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Most extreme cases are likely to be barely feasible. Canon (talk) 15:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Sesquioxidizing

message: electroencepholography-an instrument recording the electrical activity of the brain.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.118.58.124 (talk) 03:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  another long word 

message: Is the 2 millon plus string of letters that Nigel Tomm has included in the tenth volume of his self-published "The Blah Book" a new coined word?  At any moment there are numerous long strings that individuals have coined for various reasons.  Rarely do these make it into a reference work, although P45 did, because in the 1930s citations for it were generated and sent to the editors of Webster's Second and the OED.  Is the contemporary equivalent to this being listed in this article?  In other words, does listing it here cause it to become a word? Canon (talk) 19:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I first removed reference to it then after a moment's thought un-did my removal, because it seemed such an extreme case that it was worth pointing out. But this is a slippery slope, for sure. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is required to coin a new word? 

message: If Nigel Tomm's 2 million letter word qualifies for inclusion, then so should the 4.4-million-letter word created by Mark Leach in "Marienbad My Love." According to marienbadmylove.com, it is a coinage of words from the world's faiths. Here is an excerpt from the novel ...  it was the Cicadians who came from the back of beyond to bring us the holy Jah, the 4.4-million-character word that means “god within.” Let us speak the holy noun now, in reverent prayer to the Supreme Deity....... Dhalgren195 (talk) 02:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slope getting more slippery? 

message: Sesquipedalianism should not redirect here.  It is not the same thing as "Longest word in English", so it should have an article of its own if at all.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.86.34.188 (talk) 10:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirection 

message: Surely there should be some mention of the longest hyphenated place name: Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe in the North Riding? --86.15.128.27 (talk) 18:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not in this article, which is specifically about single words.dunerat (talk) 07:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Longest Placenames in English 

message: Maybe the words "lollipop" or "lollypop" could be considered the longest word that can be written on a QWERTY keyboard, although not much research has gone into this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aeros2 (talk • contribs) 14:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Longest Word on Right Side on a QWERTY keyboard 

message: I am of the mind that this should be credited as "longest word with alternating vowels and consonants." While the word does appear in Love's Labors Lost it also appeared in other sources before and after Shakespeare wrote it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.22.79.251 (talk) 21:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Honorificabilitudinitatibus 

message: Hi. An editor has removed the entry, because apparently it is not an English word. However, it is a place name in an English-speaking country, and we also don't have an article on long non-English words. Since Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch isn't an English word either, does that mean we should have a list of long non-English words, but that might be a bit problematic because we'd have arguments about whether words are "real" words or not, and then we'd have to include words such as nordostersjokustartilleriflygspanningssimulatoranlaggningsmaterielunderhallsuppfoljningssystemdiskussionssinlaggsforberedelsearbeten (but with accents), for which the only source I could find is the Guiness Book of World Records 2006, and then there would be the problem of whether or not we can copy exact definitions, etc, and so this should be discussed? Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 00:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  taumata... 

message: The longest word in English might be «smiles», but the longest word in the world is the Norwegian word «smile» [], to smile. That word has 6¼ miles (Imperial)/10km (metric)/1 mil [] (Nordic) between the "s" and "e".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.216.169.196 (talk) 14:18, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The worlds longest word 

message: Joyce also coined "contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality" in Ulysses, which is intended as an actual word, not an onomatopoeia like "Bababada ... thurnuk".  Worth mentioning here?--Theodore Kloba (talk) 19:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another James Joyce coinage