Forum    Search    FAQ

Board index » Chat Forums » Word Games and Random Silliness




Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 15 posts ] 
 
Author Message
 Post Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 12:27 pm 
Moderator of DOOM!
Moderator of DOOM!
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 15900
Location: Yes.
So what's the longest word in the English language? Antidisestablishmentarianism. Really? Pardon me while I put down my beer...

So, several hundred years ago the King of England, one Henry the 8th, wanted to establish a national church for England. Those in favor were establishmentarians, those opposed were disestablishmentarians. Now since the chief establishmentarian was the king, there was some political gain to be had by being seen as specifically opposed to those that didn't like the idea (as distinct from merely being in favor of it); and these political opportunists were the antidisestablishmentarians. So far so good. Then some grammarian jackass came along and decided to pretend that these opportunists had a concrete doctrine; and so added the suffix -ism to create the then longest word: antidisestablismentarianism.

But of course, all doctrines come from somewhere; and in this case the precursor would have been protoantidisestablishmentarianism. But what if there were several similar, but not quite identical doctrines to that precursor? Well, then they would have been quasiprotoantidisestablishmentarianisms. But heaven forefend that there was a doctrine pretending to be one of those collateral precursor doctrines: for it would have been a pseudoquasiprotoantidisestablishmentarianism. Unless it wasn't really well enough defined to fully meet that standard, in which case it would merely have been pseudoquasiprotoantidisestablishmentarianismish. And let's hope that mushy spurious doctrine never became a dogma; or someone espousing a variant would be persecuted for their pseudoquasiprotoantidisestablishmentarianismish heresy.

There. 19 letters longer, and I even used it in a sentence. Let me reclaim my beer. And so we see that the correct answer to the question of what's the longest word in the English language is pseudoquasiprotoantidisestablishmentarianismish; and that this will be true until the next grammarian jackass who sees this decides to take up the challenge and make it even longer.

So I guess the real answer to the question of what's the longest word in the English language is: there is none. Whatever you can come up with, someone else can make longer. And to those who object to what I just did here, I bid you to take it up with that long dead grammarian jackass who pretended that political opportunism of a specific sort had a formal doctrine: he started it.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:26 pm 
Member of the Fraternal Order of the Emergency Pants
User avatar
Online
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2003 12:00 am
Posts: 3439
AOL: Dodger724
Location: Relative Obscurity
o_0

Wow, I think Were just started a Random Silliness thread. I never thought I'd see the day.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2021 2:50 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Wed May 15, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 11381
Such is a very long word in the English language, yes. But the English language is operating at a disadvantage here; you can only stack prefixes/suffixes onto a word. And yes, you can stack multiples of these... but you can't just mash entire words together.

Let's consider another language for a moment - Afrikaans. In Afrikaans - well, let my put it this way. There is a place called Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein. (Seriously, you can find it on Google Maps) Translated, that works out to "Two-buffalo-with-one-bullet-shot-dead-as-doornails-Springs". That's only a very few letters short of pseudoquasiprotoantidisestablishmentarianismish; and it's trivial to make it longer. "Tweebuffelsophierdieplaasmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein" (or "Two-buffalo-on-this-farm-with-one-bullet-shot-dead-as-doornails-Springs") would be equally valid.

You can pretty much throw arbitrary words together to make an arbitrary compound word, and then use that as a place name. To make a longer word in English takes work. To do so in Afrikaans takes just gluing any sufficiently long phrase together.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2021 1:31 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:07 am
Posts: 1505
WLM: [email protected]
Yahoo Messenger: [email protected]
Location: Out of my mind, back... never
And then there's German...

Although, probably the scariest word that I know in Afrikaans is "ratel" Which according to Lawdog is slang for honey badger.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:42 pm 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Wed May 15, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 11381
Well, Afrikaans is pretty close to being 18th-century Dutch, so it probably has some roots in common with German. Grammatically, if nothing else

It seems that 'Ratel' is English for 'honey badger', though. Either that, or English has done as English will and swiped the word.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 10:06 pm 
Member of the Fraternal Order of the Emergency Pants
User avatar
Online
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2003 12:00 am
Posts: 3439
AOL: Dodger724
Location: Relative Obscurity
Yeah I've never heard that word, I think we swiped it.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2021 1:38 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:07 am
Posts: 1505
WLM: [email protected]
Yahoo Messenger: [email protected]
Location: Out of my mind, back... never
I just know the story in the link that I shared, which is a link to a set of links since it was a six parter.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2021 8:00 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Wed May 15, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 11381
I don't recall having ever heard of the word 'ratel' before having seen it in here, and I speak both English and Afrikaans. (Though my vocabulary is a tonne better in English)

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:27 pm 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2003 12:00 am
Posts: 1844
Location: aboard the Fool's Folly
We need to get someone fluent in Welsh in on this discussion. Those guys have some long words, IIRC.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 6:08 pm 
Moderator of DOOM!
Moderator of DOOM!
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 15900
Location: Yes.
Well, I suppose we could look for a language that has a shorter grammatically correct sentence than 'No.' That might be idly amusing.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2021 4:53 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Wed May 15, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 11381
I think that English has Afrikaans very thoroughly beaten on this one.

The exact equivalent sentence in Afrikaans would be "Nee!" (one letter longer). There aren't many one-letter words (english "I" becomes "Ek") and the only one that comes immediately to mind is "'n" (pronounced as a short ah sound) which is the indefinite article (english "a") and thus in no way a complete sentence on its own.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 10:10 am 
Moderator of DOOM!
Moderator of DOOM!
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 15900
Location: Yes.
Thought for the day:

Written language was invented roughly five thousand years ago. Typos have been evolving defenses ever since.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2021 1:25 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:07 am
Posts: 1505
WLM: [email protected]
Yahoo Messenger: [email protected]
Location: Out of my mind, back... never
Oh, and as an aside. The Ratel Saga that I linked to is going to be a coloring book. Lawdog and Cedar Sanderson have already done one based on some recent Facebook updates from Lawdog. The title is Taskforce Chiweenie and the Poultry Liberation Front. Really funny. Not for children as there are a couple of mature words in it.

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2022 12:25 pm 
Moderator of DOOM!
Moderator of DOOM!
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 15900
Location: Yes.
I hear rumors that there are places in the English speaking world where 'dog' and 'log' rhyme, and perhaps even some where 'coffee' rhymes with 'toffee'. Probably an urban myth; but I suppose local accents could possibly make it true...

Top 
   
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2022 11:38 am 
Moderator of DOOM!
Moderator of DOOM!
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 15900
Location: Yes.
My name is Ozymandias: look upon my works, ye Munchkins, and despair!

Top 
   
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
 
Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 15 posts ] 

Board index » Chat Forums » Word Games and Random Silliness


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

 
 

 
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: