Do We Really Need Long Words?

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all. - Winston Churchill

Many years ago (the exact number is not important) when I was in school, I used to be a good speller. With the advent of the computer, my spelling skills have become pathetic. There are times I mangle a word so severely that spell checker is even at a loss for suggestions as to what I might be trying to say.

The more letters a word has, the more opportunity I have to misspell or mispronounce it, so I tend to use shorter words. However, words with many letters still fascinate me, so when I saw the article, “The 11 Longest Words in the English Language” in the Huffington Post, it grabbed my attention.

The longest word is 189,819 letters. It’s the chemical name of titin, the largest known protein. I’m not going to print it. With all those letters, I’m sure I’d make a typo or two (not that anyone would notice) and it isn’t a word I can imagine anyone dropping during a casual conversation. I do wonder, however, if there are any sadistic teachers who put this word on an exam and mark off for spelling.

Here are a few of my favorites from the article that roll off the tongue

Honorificabilitudinitatibus n. (27 letters) - the state of being able to achieve honors. The longest word Shakespeare ever used and the longest word in the English language with alternating consonants and vowels.

Floccinaucinihilipilification n. (29 letters) - the estimation of something as valueless.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian adj. (30 letters) of or pertaining to extremely long words.

Asseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary adj. (51 letters) - used to describe the structure of the entire human body. (Note: The definition has fewer letters than the word, so why use the word?)

Aequeosalinocalcalinosetaceoaluminosocupreovitriolic adj. (52 letters) - used to describe the spa waters at Bath, England. (Note: I don’t know if this is a good description or bad, but I think I’d keep out of the water.)

Speaking of words, Hart Johnson of Confessions of a Watery Tart, awarded me with the Literacy Builder Award. Though I feel undeserving of this award, I’m truly flattered. If you haven’t visited Hart, you don’t know the fun you’re missing. She has a love of words and it shows in her blogs.

I’m expected to pass this award along, but I notice it’s already displayed by the blogs I visit (because I visit such high quality bloggers). The other thing I’m supposed to do is list five favorite words. I jotted down the five that jumped into my mind first, although there are many more I could add.

Grandma (when voiced by my grandson)
Superfluous
Pique
Serendipity
Scrumptious

What are your favorite words? What do you think of long words?

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope to see you again next Monday.

Tags: Winston Churchill, long words, longest words, Hart Johnson,

Unusual Words

“If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?” - Stephen Wright

Books are wonderful diversions that allow your mind to stray from day to day worries. I discovered the books do not have to be a riveting fiction or non-fiction read when I ran across The Word Lovers Dictionary: Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words by Josefa Heifetz. I like words so I found the title intriguing.

The dictionary is wonderful and has provided me with hours of enjoyment. The book is filled with…well…unusual, obscure and preposterous words which (according to the claim on the back cover) are all accepted as formal or legitimate English words.

The longest word in the book has 1,913 letters and no, I am not going to attempt to type it. It’s a chemical name for an enzyme with 267 amino acids. Another word with a mere 1,185 letters is the protein part of the tobacco mosaic virus (whatever that is). I’m quite sure these words won’t be needed for anything I write, but what a bummer to draw either at a spelling bee!

I hoped learning a few new words would stimulate my mind and get the creative juices flowing, so I flipped through the dictionary, selected some random new words and went to work.

The yiver (greedy, eager) woman performed lecanomancy (fortunetelling by looking at water in a basin) for her neanic (youthful, immature) client who said his anomia (inability to remember names) had cost him his job.

Hmmm…I’m almost certain I’ll never develop the sentence into a novel or short story, but I have certainly entertained myself and, hopefully, learned a new word or two in the process.

If you ever have the urge to entertain yourself by writing nonsense sentences with unusual, obscure or preposterous words, try Mrs. Byrne’s Word of the Day at http://textstore.co.il/mrsbyrne.html for a daily tidbit from The Word Lovers Dictionary. And then, by all means, share your creation with us.

As you may have guessed, there’s no news from ArcheBooks on the publication process of The Ride.

Thanks for stopping by. See you next week.

Jane Kennedy Sutton
Author of The Ride (to be released by ArcheBooks Publishing)
janekennedysutton@gmail.com
http://janekennedysutton.googlepages.com/
http://www.authorsden.com/janesutton



Tags: The Ride, ArcheBooks, Word Lovers Dictionary, Heifetz, Mrs. Byrne, Stephen Wright, unusual words, longest words