When I was younger, I used to love finding really long words and learning them. I remember vividly being very upset when I discovered that Mary Poppins’ ’supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ is not a real word! Anyway, my mother used to (and still does) watch all the wordy game shows that there were on TV, one of which (I forget it’s name) used to involve the contestants thinking up the longest word that they could, containing a set of three letters. This word used to crop up a lot, and so I learned it. It’s in the dictionary, although the OED doesn’t make the meaning crystal clear (or at least not the edition I own). Then, after a wordy argument with some people I work with, I decided to look it up, and to my delight I found a website devoted to these sorts of words! And Floccinaucinihilipilification enjoys a page to itself, together with definition and derivation as follows!
FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION
The action or habit of judging something to be worthless.
Back in the eighteenth century, Eton College had a grammar book which listed a set of words from Latin which all meant “of little or no value”. In order, those were flocci, nauci, nihili, and pili (which sound like four of the seven dwarves, Roman version, but I digress). As a learned joke, somebody put all four of these together and then stuck –fication on the end to make a noun for the act of deciding that something is totally and absolutely valueless.
However, the discovery of this website has been bittersweet – I have discovered that there is a longer word in the English language, and as yet I’ve been unable to devote the necessary hours into memorising it and its meaning!
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Apparently this is some sort of lung disease (nice) caused by the inhalation of volcanic dust. I think I’ll stick with my original and long time favourite word! Apparently there is considerable controversy in the world of etymology about whether the pneumo-etc word should be counted as the longest word, as it was created purely to be the longest word. And so, I propose that we all get together and create a longer word, easier to remember and with a happier definition please! Answers on a postcard to the usual address!
Update: I’ve just found out that the programme that I remember so vividly from my childhood was called ‘Catchword’ and was on air roughly from 1988 until 1995 before ‘Countdown’ came on each afternoon. It was hosted by Paul Coia who (extra trivia points here!) was the first voice to be heard on Channel 4 and is married to the ex-Miss Great Britain Debbie Greenwood. I love Wikipedia!
Filed under: General Comment, Motherhood and family life, fun doodlies
Can’t quite beat your record, but did you know that people with a fear of the number 666 are called hexakosioihexekontahexaphobics?
Goodness knows how you pronounce it!!
When I was at school we were taught that antidisestablishmentarianism was the longest word in the English dictionary. I remember having a lengthy dispute with my English teacher, Mr Buckie, as to whether antidisestablishmentarianistically could be derived from it. Not, was his opinion!