The Longest Word in the English Language
When I was in the third or fourth grade at Katherine L. Gust Elementary School in southwest Denver, someone came up to me on the playground and asked “Do you know what the longest word is?” I replied that I did not and received the proud and enthusiastic answer. “It is ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’. “
And I thought to myself “Huh.”
I tucked that little tidbit of information away should I ever need it. As it turns out, the first time I ever needed it was in the writing of this article. I was thinking about that incident the other day and it occurred to me that I had never really checked up on the playground assertion that this was, indeed, the longest word.
I cruised the Internet and came upon some “borders on interesting” information.
It turns out that “antidisestablishmentarianism” is indeed a long word. It is, in fact, the longest non-coined, non-technical word in the English language. So that fellow on the playground who spurred my curiosity 52 years later actually knew his stuff.
The longest word, however, is a technical term for the protein titin, the third most abundant protein in human muscle. It has 189,819 letters. One wonders what practicality there is in creating a word that is so long that it would span some 60 pages (at Arial font, 10 point.) One would think the average reader would get bored around page 5 and set the technical article aside.
My curiosity piqued, I looked up the definition of antidisestablishmentarianism. My Webster’s Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary lists the following:
I checked the Internet further and learned that the word became popular on the 1950s game show “The 64,000 Question” and that a variant of the word can be found in the 1947 Duke Ellington song “You’re Just an Old Antidisestablishmentarianismist” and was later used by Eminem in his song “Almost Famous”.
Which brings me my final deep thought for the day.
We have the freedom to worship in this country. A freedom that we often take for granted – in fact, even ignore – because it had been woven into the fabric of our society even before our country was founded.
We debate religion, we argue its appropriate place in the law of the land, we define it in dictionaries, we touch on it in game shows and popular songs. But in this country of ours, we have the freedom to chose. We are not compelled – either by law or convention – to be a member of a church. We are not required to pay tithes. And this is all good. But we should pause every now and then and count this blessing – the freedom to worship – as perhaps the greatest of our freedoms.
And I thought to myself “Huh.”
I tucked that little tidbit of information away should I ever need it. As it turns out, the first time I ever needed it was in the writing of this article. I was thinking about that incident the other day and it occurred to me that I had never really checked up on the playground assertion that this was, indeed, the longest word.
I cruised the Internet and came upon some “borders on interesting” information.
It turns out that “antidisestablishmentarianism” is indeed a long word. It is, in fact, the longest non-coined, non-technical word in the English language. So that fellow on the playground who spurred my curiosity 52 years later actually knew his stuff.
The longest word, however, is a technical term for the protein titin, the third most abundant protein in human muscle. It has 189,819 letters. One wonders what practicality there is in creating a word that is so long that it would span some 60 pages (at Arial font, 10 point.) One would think the average reader would get bored around page 5 and set the technical article aside.
My curiosity piqued, I looked up the definition of antidisestablishmentarianism. My Webster’s Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary lists the following:
-
antidisestablishmentarianism
opposition to the disestablishment of a church or religious body; specifically, strong opposition to the disestablishment of a State Church, as was manifested in Ireland in 1869, when Gladstone disestablished the Irish Church (Protestant) to which all the people, including Roman Catholics, had been compelled to pay tithes.
I checked the Internet further and learned that the word became popular on the 1950s game show “The 64,000 Question” and that a variant of the word can be found in the 1947 Duke Ellington song “You’re Just an Old Antidisestablishmentarianismist” and was later used by Eminem in his song “Almost Famous”.
Which brings me my final deep thought for the day.
We have the freedom to worship in this country. A freedom that we often take for granted – in fact, even ignore – because it had been woven into the fabric of our society even before our country was founded.
We debate religion, we argue its appropriate place in the law of the land, we define it in dictionaries, we touch on it in game shows and popular songs. But in this country of ours, we have the freedom to chose. We are not compelled – either by law or convention – to be a member of a church. We are not required to pay tithes. And this is all good. But we should pause every now and then and count this blessing – the freedom to worship – as perhaps the greatest of our freedoms.
September 2017