What is antidisestablishmentarianism? | THE LONGEST WORDS

[@AlyraMoondancer]

Way back in the last century (somewhere around 1988 or 1989) I coined a word which is respectable in length: monolithodiornithocide. It is the act of killing two birds with one stone.

[@WordsUnravelled]

I'm having this. R

[@AlyraMoondancer]

@@WordsUnravelled Thank you! 😄

[@Charlz1980tv]

Please, do show...😎

[@rosebroady6618]

New Zealand has a place name Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu It translates to English as: “The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one”.

[@tomobedlam297]

Tamatea got around. He started out in Otamatea in Northland and was exiled with his son Kahungunu and journeyed down the East Coast. Kahungunu settled in Hawkes Bay and Tamatea continued on south.

[@rosebroady6618]

@@tomobedlam297 that explains the knees then. I've always been curious about why his knees where so important

[@RabidJohn]

Yeah, I was surprised they didn't mention that one, especially as it was in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest word in the world, and it's fairly well known from its use as a backing-vocal chant in Quantum Leap's 1976 single 'Lone Ranger'.

[@SamLowryDZ-015]

@@RabidJohn Quantum Jump - and featured regularly on The Kenny Everett Show - with what would now be seen as 'problematic' animation 😮 (so if you look it up don't say you weren't warned)

[@ann_onn]

Have a look at the full name for Bangkok. It has 168 letters. It's kinda similar to Taumata - "City of angels, great city of immortals, magnificent city of the nine gems..." etc. A lot of Thai people know it, because it was used as the lyrics to a pop song. Quite nice that Bangkok means pretty much the same thing as Los Angeles. Kinda.

[@delikatessbruhe9843]

Whenever English friends and classmates ask me about ridiculous German compound words, I tend to point out that English and German aren't too different in how they build compounds. In fact, you can build a lot of exactly the same ones in both languages. The only difference is that Engish puts some spaces in there if you write them down but the mechanics are quite the same. Makes it easier to fathom for a lot of peope. Also fun fact: Because it's been drilled into my head that English doesn't glue words together, I frequently rip words apart that are actually spelled without a space. Like I literally had to look up just now if "classmate" is one word or two and I keep battling with "orange juice" or "wheelchair" in the same vein. It's quite arbitrary sometimes, whereas German's just like: ah smash 'em all together.

[@rhydderc127]

I hate it when MS Word insists that I should always combine words like “sometimes”. There are some times when you don’t mean ‘sometimes’.

[@biaberg3448]

In Norwegian: One ting - one word. Splitting up is not allowed ( sadly everyone don’t know)

[@davidlloyd7597]

I'm an English speaker and I have the same problem.

[@josbogers]

Dutch does the same thing as German: just glue everything together.

[@nicholasarrow2443]

And words grow to gether over time. What was two words yester day may become one to morrow.

[@karlkutac1800]

It seems Rob blushes at least once during most every episode. Nicely done, Jess!

[@TullyViewer]

That impression would be very much diminished if Rob were using a warm, soft lighting like Jess is rather than the harsh white he tends to use :D

[@stephenlee5929]

Is there a word for that?

[@ZXRWH]

remember: an erection is technically blushing. until we meet again!

[@reddblackjack]

In Rob's defense it's his genetics. They're both married and not to each other and sometimes it looks like he's attracted to her, but he's not dumb enough for such an obvious cheating partner. Heck, I think she's cute, but I'm not going to tell her that. 😜. He's a blusher. Very Celtic trait, I believe. I blush easily too, but I'm a ginger with gingervitus, I've got no soul.

[@mmcmiddlechild]

Great episode!

[@brianarbenz1329]

I don’t support antidisestablishmentarianism. So I am a counterantidisestablishmentarianist.

[@davidrichter57]

Oddly, so am I. Now we can make the plural!

[@rich1051414]

All those that came before you established this movement are therefore precounterantidisestablishmentarianists. And those who come after you are postcounterantidisestablishmentarianists.

[@tomrogue13]

​@rich1051414 the prefix yester like yesterday or yesteryear kinda means previous so we could call them yestercounterantidisestablismentarians

[@VIRACYTV]

And I used to be like you, but now I am decounterantidisestablishmentarianist

[@BrennanYoung]

that's fighting talk round our way

[@StephenDukenski]

Man, I LOVED hearing the story of how antidisestablishmentarianism was popularized as a word! Thank you for that! The longest word I’ve memorized is one I learned from a song: “Let’s go canoeing on Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.” Which is a place name from Algonquian - otherwise known as Lake Webster in Massachusetts. I often find myself singing this song while cooking. I snorted at “skilometers”

[@WordsUnravelled]

That lake is only a couple of hours from me! I'll have to take my kayak up there! - Jess

[@andyjdhurley]

I was hoping for Taumata­whakatangihanga­koauau­o­tamatea­turi­pukaka­piki­maunga­horo­nuku­pokai­whenua­ki­tana­tahu which I memorised as a boy with a copy of the Guinness World Records book. Interestingly I see they have slightly changed the translation since I learned it, he is no loger a 'circumnavigator of lands' but a 'climber of mountains... who travelled about' - sounds a bit tame somehow.

[@tonybalinski2398]

If we were measuring nerdiness, that skillometer would be giving results off the charts!

[@lohphat]

In computer science, the discipline of internationalization is often abbreviated “i18n” with the 18 replacing the count of the intervening letters. "l10n" being the other for "localization".

[@SuviTuuliAllan]

Actually, can you be certain that it isn't 'internationalisation'?

[@robgreene3745]

There's also a11y for "accessibility" and l10n for "localisation", and k8s for "kubernetes" (a container orchestration platform).

[@richardtranter7487]

17:🎉🎉20 😮😮😂 😢😮😢😢 18:30

[@richardtranter7487]

​@@TheClintonio 😂 🎉😂

[@richardtranter7487]

​@@TheClintonio😂😂🎉 😂

[@Dan-pv5oq]

"Pneumono­ultra­micro­scopic­silico­volcano­coniosis Even though the sound of it Is something quite atrocious If you say it long enough you will get halitosis Pneumono­ultra­micro­scopic­silico­volcano­coniosis" was a song I sang to myself about a half century ago. No one else thought it was funny

[@victoriafelix5932]

& just like the Middle English, your jingle took my eth away....

[@danwillits7954]

@@victoriafelix5932 Thank you for the lovely pun.

[@victoriafelix5932]

@@danwillits7954 Thank you. :)

[@keetrandling4530]

a sad song about the symptoms of a disease of the lungs resulting from inhaling silico-volcanic rock. 😢 😂

[@victoriafelix5932]

@@keetrandling4530 by Igorrr? I thunk I 'eard 'bout dat un

[@SaltineAmericanCracker]

Jess’s head movement while listening is mesmerizing to me. To me, it adds to her beauty, and I could watch her all day.

[@GranthamAtHome]

Head movement is, of course, part of non-verbal communication, and I agree Jess uses it very endearingly, but maybe they could do a podcast on that very subject?

[@cdouglashall]

I’m astonished at how charming Rob is. I truly enjoy his presentations and I think he and Jess are excellent partners. I truly enjoy watching the two of them geek out together, even more than I enjoy watching the presentations and learning the material. The two of them being so happy sharing their passion is really uplifting. I thank them both 🫡

[@cmtippens9209]

I was in elementary school in the 60s and the word antidisestablishmentarianism suddenly became a hot trend. None of us knew why, so thank you for explaining it to me all these years later. But it also came in handy for our teachers to use for teaching root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Once you understand that, it's easy to pull apart almost any word to comprehend its meaning.

[@wetcanoedogs]

same here! i was thinking of the contests to see who could spell it fast,early 60's.

[@keetrandling4530]

Won a 3rd grade spelling bee off of that word, back in ye olden times 😊

[@keyem4504]

As a German I'd like to point out that it's not strictly agglutination what German does. It's better described by the term "fusional language". However, both terms describe additions to words for grammatical purposes. What we do in German by connecting multiple words to create a new noun is called a "Kompositum", or "alphabetical procession" if you go with Marc Twain😉. And this is how we create nouns that fill pages, if we want to.

[@MagereHein]

Your friendly neighbour language Dutch does it like that too. According to Van Dale, the most prestigious Dutch dictionary, the longest Dutch word in common use is _meervoudigepersoonlijkheidsstoornis_ (multiple personality disorder).

[@janekalbinsky]

The annoying/fun thing about German compound words is that, like in English, the most important part comes at the end of the word, but we keep going: Mülltonne is a trash can. Mülltonnendeckel is the lid of the trash can. Mülltonnendeckelersatzteil is a spare part for the lid of a trash can, and Mülltonnendeckelersatzteilverkäufer is the person who sells spare parts for the lid if a trash can...

[@MagereHein]

@@janekalbinsky There's a Dutch joke, in which the prize for winning a game is "a Mercedes-Benz-autobandventieldopje".

[@metallsnubben]

And indeed, you could argue that lots of things _written_ with a space (or hyphen) in English is a "compound word" just the same, and it's sort of a matter of _spelling conventions_ rather than spoken grammar so to speak

[@janekalbinsky]

@@metallsnubben You have a point there where spelling is concerned. But essentially English and German apply different mechanisms to create expressions: Bundesverfassungsgericht literally is federation constitution court. I would suggest that English would use an adjectival phrase instead: federal constitutional court, or probably just Supreme Court...

[@PeterSamuel-y4b]

I came to watch the podcast becasue Rob's videos often fascinate me, but I really like the dynamic between you guys and I love the podcast already.

[@stevetournay6103]

My old boss was a target shooting enthusiast. Several times he took groups of the staff to the gun club he belonged to and did an informal gun-safety course. On at least one occasion he tailored it specifically to the women in the department, and wanted a name for the event, something like "Girls and Guns". I suggested "Pistols and Pulchritude", which he loved once I explained what "pulchritude" was!

[@frankmerrill2366]

Yeah, one of those words which has a harsh sound so contrary to its actual meaning. Pulchritude, meet chuffed.

[@binarydinosaurs]

My favourite use of a hyphen is in 'non-hyphenated'. I love these videos, hugely fascinating every time.

[@DawnDavidson]

😂😂😂

[@libraryguy11]

Humongoamorphus - A word describing the distance between raised hands, that fishermen use to depict the fish that got away, which changes at each retelling.

[@BSWVI]

Underappreciated word 😆

[@RNS_Aurelius]

Japanese being a pro drop, agglutinative language, it's possible for one or two words to express what would be a full sentence in English. It's hard to explain why I love it so much without explain all the linguistic building blocks of Japanese syntax. もう食べすぎちゃった (mou tabesugichatta) translates as 'I have regretfully/unfortunately already eaten too much'

[@ann_onn]

ですね

[@julius9055]

Tbf you can kind of do that it English too: 'I've overindulged.'

[@RNS_Aurelius]

@@julius9055 over indulge is much more general though. 食べすぎちゃう means specifically to eat too much and feel remorse about it.

[@michaelmedlinger6399]

I was so relieved! I kept waiting to hear the name of the Welsh town, and you got it in there.

[@MARVINMotorSport]

In cryptography, a nonce is an arbitrary number that can be used just once in a cryptographic communication. It is often a random or pseudo-random number. 22:44

[@juliashearer7842]

Bertie says the word a few times in the P G Wodehouse books. In the context it seemed to mean "for the moment"?

[@nicholasarrow2443]

In criminology, a nonce is a paedophile. One of those words you have to be careful with.

[@cassandragough]

The "smiles" joke crossed my mind early in the podcast but I thought I can't possibly go there in the comments. Thanks Rob for going there; it amused the child in me very much!

[@digitalnomad9985]

Instead of saying it's long because it has a mile between the first and last letter you could impress even more by saying from the first letter it goes on for miles.

[@mauvegrail]

Jacob Rees Mogg was called "the member for the Eighteenth Century" - which is entirely appropriate.

[@thearcticlord3920]

I can think of other names

[@justindonie]

The pair of you are such a highlight of my week. Congratulations on your ongoing delightful efforts!

[@hive_indicator318]

Hearing Rob day "innit?" brought to mind a possible episode topic: words that came about because of being shortened while speaking. Y'all already did "goodbye", but there's loads more

[@toneman501]

...just thought I'd say G'day...

[@SillySpaceMonkey]

It'd be a good one, nah'msayn?

[@msnouveau]

Like "jeet" here in the US south for "did you eat?"

[@hive_indicator318]

@@msnouveau jeetyet is the word here

[@HattmannenNilsson]

What a marvellous, multitudinous melange of multisyllabic monstrosities! Magnificently manufactured and meticulously elucidated. (even if my alliteration fell down there at the end)

[@dabneyapplechunks]

Meticulously and mellifluously! 😂

[@ChrisHatt]

... mentioned!

[@frankmerrill2366]

Um...MOUTHED?

[@hisham_hm]

...meticulously manifested!

[@HattmannenNilsson]

@@frankmerrill2366 Sure, but I was after something along the lines of explained, not just told and I couldn't think of an alliteration, so I went with the closest to an alliteration my mind could throw up at the moment.

[@broderickfry3178]

Ahhhh... I love the sound of sesquipedalia in the morning! ;)

[@theeniwetoksymphonyorchest7580]

That smell, that sesquipedalia smell….

[@frankmerrill2366]

What do we have here, a pedaliaphile? Even better if you live in Sedalia. lol

[@victoriafelix5932]

I must admit I do find somewhat more than a pinch of pleasure in reading thence attempting to recite both Brennan’s Prose-verse-poster-algebraic-symbolico-riddle Musicopoematographoscope & his Pocket Musicopoematographoscope….

[@LaVieDeReine86]

Hyphens save sport careers. "Star NFL player" re-signs vs "Star NFL player" resigns.

[@renerpho]

What if there's a line break after "re"?

[@LaVieDeReine86]

@renerpho I believe the whole word should always go to the next line. If you wanna keep it neat, use justify instead of left align.

[@renerpho]

@@LaVieDeReine86 The rule to "avoid X where it may cause confusion" is such a spoilsport, isn't it?

[@LaVieDeReine86]

@@renerpho yeah, it's why you have 'a' 'à' 'ou' 'où' and 'la' 'là' in French. Especially la being a definite article. If you read 'c'est la' without 'là' would be super vague and ambiguous.

[@holden2gether]

I used to have a tee shirt that proved that commas saved lives. "Lets eat Grandma" as opposed to "lets eat, grandma"

[@josephmaton1393]

I never comment on KZbin but I just had to say that while listening to the latter half of this I became engrossed in watching some ants crawling around on the floor and so the mention of the term "myrmecophilous" was incredibly appropriate. Great work as always Rob and Jess!

[@sydhe1]

Also myrmecophagous which an adjective describing anteaters.

[@ChristineStables]

When Jacob Rees Mogg was an MP I recall him being referred to as the Honourable Member for the 18th century. I loved his dry wit and his sense of history and tradition.

[@crss29]

Rob's face trying to match the color of his shirt 😂😂😂

[@Veggiuto]

Strictly, das Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz is the law (Gesetz) concerning the transfer (Übertragung) of responsibility (Aufgabe) for the supervision (Überwachung) of the labeling (Etikettierung) of beef (Rindfleisch).

[@trinefanmel]

So it's a law presiding over what needs to happen when I don't want to supervise the labelling of beef anymore and need to get someone else to do it?

[@renerpho]

It also only held the record for four years (1999-2003), when it was surpassed by the Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungs­zuständigkeits­übertragungs­verordnung.

[@barjamlin7962]

I look forward to each of these videos; you two play off each other beautifully. I’m fond of the German word Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung (Motor vehicle liability insurance)and the stunningly specific Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (captain of a Danube steamship company ship).

[@andeeanko7079]

You two are just adorable! ❤

[@michaelstamper5604]

How strangely apt that the longest Words Unravelled video so far (I think?) is on the topic of the longest words. Almost poetic, in a way.

[@dennismcdermot647]

Hypererudition syndrome: an exacerbated proclivity for polysyllabic vocabulature (likes big words)

[@ftumschk]

aka "sesquipedalianism"?

[@nuclearmedicineman6270]

@@ftumschk I'd like one of those foot and half longs please, beef and sauerkraut, extra mustard.

[@douglasdingler9405]

Many superlong words in English happen to be in the medical field. If one desires to know those words, try that field. A suggestion for an upcoming episode would be phrases that revolve around animals, such as busy as a bee or a dog's life. There are many such phrases, most that don't have any obvious animal but are still derived from such.

[@veedgo]

Agglutinative isn't just adding endings, many have infixes like Georgian, Turkish, Tagalog, Thai/Lao and many New World languages.

[@AJansenNL]

I don't think Turkish has infixes, but Arabic definitely does.

[@veedgo]

@@AJansenNL Thai and Lao have some really long words and names. The longest capitol name in the world is Bangkok in Thai "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Phiman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit". But it only has a few longer words in it "กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลก ภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์ มหาสถาน อมรพิมาน อวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะ วิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์".

[@Kosmokraton]

I was looking for this. And don't forget prefixes, which even English has. Agglutinating languages are languages which combine many morphemes into few words.

[@AnnaCMeyer]

Many of the indigenous languages of North America are agglutinative, most notably Inuktitut.

[@Gmackematix]

There used to be a British TV quiz called Catchword. It had a round where three consonants came up and contestants had to say the longest word starting with the first, with the other two in there somewhere, not necessarily consecutively, in the same order. You'll be unsurprised to hear that pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovocanoconiosis and floccinaucinihilipilification came up quite regularly.

[@topquark22]

My favourite long German word is Zylinderkopfdichtungsinstandsetzungsarbeiten, which in the context of automobile repair, means "cylinder head gasket installation work"

[@jeromemckenna7102]

Now I understand why I heard of the word 'antidisestablishmentarianism' long before I understood what it meant.

[@frankmerrill2366]

I've been known to use the word basically in context, because in some ways that doctrine has indeed returned. Not in a good way.

[@roymillard5784]

My favorites: defenestration & prestidigitation.

[@heronimousbrapson863]

"English has ridiculously long words". German: "Hold my beer...."

[@mehlindiinthewebway3910]

Rob: antee, Jess: antay. Oh, the beauty of dialects and accents.

[@laamonftiboren4236]

38:22 I mis-heard “creativity” as “creazy mind” (/kri'eizi maind/), and just wanted to say I think “creazy” is a rather nice portmanteau of “creative” and “crazy”.

[@tabitha2706]

Back in the 1970s while i was in 7th grade Antidisestablishmentarianism was a bonus spelling word my english teacher gave us one time. The definition he provided was extremely lazy and simplistic, and I didn’t learn the actual meaning until I was much older; but i always remembered the word itself, afterward. And now, thanks to you, I’ve learned the wonderful reason for it’s popularity (although to date, I’ve yet to meet another person who knows of it if I bring it up)

[@donnashelton464]

Oh my goodness, My husband and a friend of his in High school looked up a bunch of long words to impress people and have a laugh, used this word "omphaloskepsis". He asked me if I knew the word when we were dating and I've heard him use this word through the years. He always has to remind me what it means. He wants to know if you know the word 'oral diadochokinesis. It's a word he learned in college majoring in Speech & Hearing. What fun this episode is.

[@Metheglyn]

@@donnashelton464 Doubting that The First Man had a navel? Just a guess.

[@Feckinpaddy29]

As always I love the video. I was wondering if you had ever thought of doing one on proper nouns which have become adjectives. The 2 which most readily come to mind for me are Billingsgate and Quisling

[@marvinmauldin4361]

Multiphasicsystemicmicrooptimization. Useful for explaining why you're late with your assignment.

[@VonJost]

I love you guys so much ❤ such a great show. Interesting and intellectual, but also so easy to listen to and take in. You guys are great. Never stop making these!

[@munkytaint666]

I'm pretty sure that Dichlorfluoromethane is also used as a refrigerant gas. ...at least it used to be. as a florocarbon it's been replaced by another refrigerant called R-134a that's less deleterious to the atmosphere if accidentally released. (we referred to the previous gas as R-12, you may have heard of it by that name)

[@drfill9210]

Yes minister described "antidisestablishmentarianismists"

[@clydecessna737]

I would like to hear you and Jess talk about the "regulation" of language. For example L'acadamie francaise regulates the words "Le Weekend" which by law must be replaced on publication with "la fin de semaine". How has this constrained the development of French for example.

[@tomrio9152]

It would interest me as well. L'Académie Française is very reticent to accept neologisms and words coming directly from english into the "correct" French language. This means that there is one main organism that dictates what words the students in several countries can use in texts. I've never heard of such a control on language happening in English. I'm often astounded by the number of neologisms that are accepted in English dictionaries. Really curious about the whole process of "accepting" new words.

[@digitalnomad9985]

@@tomrio9152 Yes, there is no "French Academy" equivalent for English, and the difference goes to the heart of the Anglophone culture. Oxford used to require a defense of an unfamiliar word in scholarly papers by a citation of an authoritative precedent, but nothing like an attempt to enforce such a standard generally has happened or has been thinkable (aside from the international "political correctness" phenomenon). The French authorities are afraid, with reason, of Europe gradually merging linguistically into the Anglosphere. This is less a concern for the Anglosphere both because none of the external influences on English are as powerful as the influences of English on others, and because if we were going to start preventing foreign influences from infecting English, we are starting a few centuries too late. English thrives on absorbing foreign words and constructions, and it's word order syntax facilitates it.

[@frankmerrill2366]

What we call "the weekend" should really be "the weekends" - like bookends.

[@webwarren]

@@tomrio9152Add to that the issue of the degree to which francophone countries outside France adhere to l'Académie's prescribed "official" neologisms (or not)... FWIW, I was in uni at the time l'Académie revamped pretty much the entire engineering and computer science lexicon...

[@outsider5578]

I learned floccinaucinihilipilification at school in the 1960s from our Latin master but he pronounced the first 4 syllables as "flocky nowky" and nihili with short "i"s, the same as in the "pili" part of the word

[@SamTAnderson]

He is correct. In Latin the c always makes a k-sound. The soft c pronunciation is used by the catholic church coz of Italian influence.

[@cobracommander8133]

I love this podcast and you two are the coolest nerds around

[@JasonReimink]

I had some friends who put out a poll on facebook the night before their wedding over how to merge their names, hyphenating in either direction or which portmanteau was preferred and everyone pointed out that one version sounded like a fantasy dragon name, so they chose that option.

[@topilinkala1594]

Finnish can verb a noun and noun a verb. So stringing these operations one after another will get you as long word in Finnish as you want. Meaning of the word can be lost on the way, but who cares when the idea is count the letters of a word. I rather think Finnish as the wonderfull language that can have such words as "pääjääjäjäjäärä", which to my knowledge is the longest consecutive dots on letters as there can be in one word. The meaning of that compund word ravels from the middle. "Jäädä" means to stay, "jääjä" is one who stays, "pääjääjä" is from a group of those who stay the head one and if that "pääjääjä" is obnoxious eg. a "-jäärä" about it then they are "pääjääjäjäärä".

[@AlarKemmotar]

I once had an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, and I've enjoyed saying it occasionally ever since!

[@frankmerrill2366]

Sphygmomanometer is a very-long (not quite extremely-long) word that is truly a mouthful. Is deinstitutionalization the longest English word that is in somewhat-common usage?

[@Tia-vj9ox]

Jess, I just bought your books for my stepdaughter’s bday. She is an Englishteacher in Slovenia.❤

[@WordsUnravelled]

Thank you so much! - Jess

[@Tia-vj9ox]

@@WordsUnravelled I am a retired teacher / Word Nerd. I just received the books and read parts of them before gifting. They are both so well done! Tyty

[@Zersetzor]

I'd like to note that that German word relating to ships on the Danube is just one example of a children's game in which kids try to add stuff to the word to make it longer and longer. The version I know starts with Donauschiffahrt (ship traffic on the Danube), but I'm sure there are other varieties.

[@AdrianDurlester]

Having been teaching K-12 students to pronounce the full name of LlanfairPG (not going to write it all out here) through a song for decades now now I get to add this little tidbit to my lessons! YAY!

[@SailorGreenTea]

9:44, what is the difference between think and know?

[@veedgo]

A video I thought of that you guys could do is one where given words have a ridiculous number of meanings like "set" and "rose". Another one would be all the manifold meanings prepositional verbs can have like "toss up", "make up", et al.

[@frankmerrill2366]

Or, for that matter, the depth and multiple uses of SHIT. Pretty insane.

[@etunimenisukunimeni1302]

I sometimes get reminded of speaking an agglutinative language, when I casually happen to write message to friend with a word so long it doesn't fit to my phone's screen and gets forcibly cut in middle. Bummer it's usually not because of agglutination but some kind of compound like the good old "lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas", which is something like "aeroplane jet turbine motor assistant mechanic non-commissioned officer-in-training" in Finnish, and apparently in proper use as a rank and not just made up. Not sure though, it's just what I've heard!

[@lokiva8540]

Are some numbers larger infinities than others (as can be true in math), when in word forms? How about numbers like e or pi, if spelled out in words? Can they be both shortest and longest "words"?

[@jeffclarke3191]

My late father would have loved this channel. His favourite made-up word was preanteipenultimate - i.e. the last but four in a series of items. Note: "Made-up" definitely requires a hyphen.

[@chickadeeacres3864]

Mine too

[@jvanyai]

I recently encountered the word preproantepenultimate - fifth last.

[@lostincyberspaceIII]

Many ancient languages didn't use punctuation between words. So part of being literate meant being able to break up the words but where one "word" ended and the other began didn't really have a physical distinction and so a what is a word could be up to interpretation.

[@sourisvoleur4854]

This channel is such a delight. Thank you!

[@GBEZ]

I never knew I had a tribe. You folks are definitely it. ❤ Thanks for your awesome content!

[@WeldonKilburn]

You should do an episode on prefixes, suffixes, and root words.

[@AdDewaard-hu3xk]

That would be every word.

[@WeldonKilburn]

@AdDewaard-hu3xk just do the Latin ones then. I had a list in high-school of the 25 most common of each.

[@michaelhaywood8262]

I would like one on negation. There are so many prefixes that can be used to negate a word just a few examples, anti, de, in, non, un, among many others. Sometimes a word will have two negatives, which are not quite interchangeable, which could be perhaps described as a ''soft negative'' and a ''hard negative''.

[@lauriebradford613]

You two are so fun together.

[@Bob94390]

In Norwegian, the word damplokomotivfyrbøteraspirantluemerkeprodusentdatterkinoavtaletidspunkt means the agreed time for going to the cinema with the daughter of a producer of hat badges for trainee stokers on steam locomotives. Many people don't use that word so often.

[@AdrianDurlester]

P.S. what about the full name of Bangkok? (There's a famous rock song by a Thai band that repeats it over and over which I sometimes adds to my Llanfair learns as it way longer.

[@TestOfInsanity]

What a wonderful episode. May I join the esteemed Mr. Edmund Blackadder in offering you my most enthusaiastic contrafibularities. Lest I become anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctuous, I shall endeavour to cause you no pericombobulations, and leave interfrastically.

[@andypartridge800]

I like Will Ferrell's line: "I like to use long words I don't understand to make myself sound more photosynthesis"

[@obandsoller]

Love this podcast! I don't agree that smiles is the longest word because of the mile between the messes, by that logic beLEAGUEred is even longer!

[@StonefieldJim4]

Delighted I stumbled upon this channel!

[@unclecreepy4185]

Not a long word, but that German being literal word. The German word for “birth control pill” is “Antibabypille”.

[@leeeorama]

Having read Joyce generally and Finnegans Wake specifically, the word you mentioned is actually one of 10 "thunder words" that appear in the novel, and each of them is exactly 100 letters long except for the final one (which Jess read out loud), which is 101 letters, so that all of the thunder words total 1001 letters, which is significant to the novel in a couple different ways (recalling Scherezadhe, and the neverending cycle of death and renewal).

[@brendanward2991]

Tho one Jess reads is the first thunder word (it's on page 3), with 100 letters.

[@j.rinker4609]

Love the coffee mug. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I think it would be good for hot chocolate too.

[@davidioanhedges]

....and it is not just the pulchritudinous Jess that knows this other word for Beautiful

[@grahamrankin4725]

Agglutination is also used in biochemistry.

[@harryleblanc4939]

So much fun! Have you yet done an episode on words that are hard to spell? I'm a pretty good speller, but there are some words that always baffle me. Like the "d" word for explosively defecating -- how many r's? how many h's?

[@frankmerrill2366]

Not to mention the archaic variation with an "o" in it...

[@gdp3rd]

Nobody working in the field actually refers to a protein by listing each individual amino acid in order in word form! We use the sequence, but as data, not the name. The closest to using such a name is when referring to relatively short peptides, i.e., an oligopeptide.

[@stephenkahler3484]

There was a word show--maybe Says You?--in the States on NPR where a word was given along with two others, and the contestant had to decide which was the real word of the three. The memorable bogus definition, for which we desperately need a real one in English or any language, is "choosing your wardrobe to match the food you will spill on it later". (Sort of like Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar saying "Bring me my red shirt", at least in the fable.) The actual word had a Finnish sound. The correct definition agglutinated "sitting around in your underwear, drinking beer, on the weekend". So Finnish has it in one word, but I've just used 10. If the show hosts had made that one up they might have gotten away with it during the show, but they surely would have heard quickly from their sharp-eared Finnish-speaking radio audience members.

[@Yotanido]

In information security, a "nonce" is a randomly chosen value attached to a packet of data to prevent an attacker from intercepting this data and sending it again. The repeated use of the same nonce will be detected and the packet discarded. (You might imagine some encrypted command being sent. Without a nonce or timestamp or something like that, an attacker could just record this and send it over and over again at their leisure. They don't need to break the encryption, they can just send it as-is. Known as a replay attack)

[@Kosmokraton]

Ah, here's the comment. As a programmer I was fairly surprised by Rob's shyness toward the term.

[@francescoxiv762]

​@@Kosmokraton Nonce in Britain means pædeophile which is why he'll be shy about it.

[@CaptainCarrot100]

I forgot about defenestration,(14), for a long time and only recently heard it again. What a wonderful way of saying I threw it out of the window!! :-) E.g. A rock star was charged with defenestrating a television from a hotel!

[@kennethpinder7983]

When I was in Junior High school, the teacher assigned us to read a book and list the new words we came across. Two female classmates approached the teacher and asked if they could read this book(I never knew the actual title). the teacher's response was "No, you won't learn any new words from an adult novel." The students promptly pointed out two new words. I do not recall the second, but I remember the first because the teacher defined the word by breaking it into its component parts. The word was and forgive my spelling it has been many, many years: PHILOPROGENETIVENESS. The final definition without looking it up was something on the order of the joy of birth-giving. that was his definition mind you not an official one. Please, also forgive the hyphen. It is grammatically correct.

[@sststr]

Nonce can also mean "for the time being". I've encountered it quite a bit in that sense in English literature from a hundred years ago. The switch to its current, more sinister usage must be fairly recent. Another word that has changed in meaning dramatically over the past century is diddling - Edgar Allan Poe wrote an entire story entitled "Diddling considered as one of the exact sciences", where in this context the word means a confidence game. Don't try to use the word today in that sense today though, nobody will get it, and it may get you in a lot of trouble!

[@JC-xq2ec]

I worked in a program in the eighties that transitioned adults that were in institutions back into the community which gives rise to this word: deinstitutionalization (we called it the "DI Program).

[@Turalcar]

The longest word I encountered in German was Reichsdeputationshauptschluss which is related to German equivalent of disestablishment where most Prince-bishoprics were reassigned to secular rulers.

[@maxberan3897]

Ref "pulchritude", Francis Galton was totally sold on the idea of quantification. This extended to an index of feminine pulchritude. His method involved overlaying photographs of faces to create an average physiognomy as a baseline. Galton is credited with the invention of statistical regression and the logNormal distribution as well as being a pioneer of the eugenics movement.

[@indyted]

Big fan of this channel. Great job, Rob and Jess. Is this how we request subjects for videos? Would it be interesting to talk about the etymology of words that have several meanings such as STRIKE. Strike to hit, strike to miss in baseball, strike to take down a set in theater, and strike to organize the workers to not work in order to pressure the management of a business (like Beoing is doing now). Did all these uses come from the same origin? This might a silly or boring subject :P Anyway, thanks for the great and entertaining videos!

[@stevewithgloves]

"Hapax legomenon" is a word I use a little to much when I talk about Homeric Greek

[@frankmerrill2366]

I still remember watching some Congressional proceedings about something, and Jessie Helms (R-N. C.), who I did not like at all, suddenly said "floccinaucinihilipilification" about something. Thinking this was in the 1990s. I was definitely surprised, because I never expected to see or hear that word in the wild.

[@geoffreypettitt9378]

It's probably been said before, but the longest word in the English language is 'Smiles'. There is a 'Mile' between the first and last letter!😊 I'll see myself out!

[@WayneKitching]

Tell me you haven't watched the entire video without telling me you haven't watched the entire video.

[@geoffreypettitt9378]

​@@WayneKitchingnow you know I can't say that as I didn't and you win the star prize⭐️ It's 40 minutes long and uses up all my data allowance!!! I'll see myself out, again (with my tail between my legs) as I am suitably chastised.

[@susand885]

Tied for first place with SMILED

[@cyborg555]

This isn't really a long word anecdote but somewhat related. I attended college at "Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis" which goes by the acronym IUPUI. When it was founded in the 1960s it was the longest named university in the US. It was overtaken by "California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo" as the longest. Sadly, the merger between Indiana University and Purdue University was recently dissolved and IUPUI no longer exists. They are now separate institutions known as Indiana University at Indianapolis and Purdue University at Indianapolis. With the acronyms IUI and PUI. Strangely, people used to jokingly pronounce IUPUI as oo-ee-poo-ee as if it were spelled IUI-PUI. Now that it is, that pronunciation makes more sense. Does anyone else know of longer institutional names?

[@reddblackjack]

I like words that can compound in Scrabble. Line to masculine to hypermasculine is one(or three) I've used myself. It's possibly hyphenated but unless your opponent is sure, they won't challenge you

[@sststr]

I came across the word 'pulchritude' in the wild about a year ago! Clark Ashton Smith used it in his story "The Black Abbot of Puthuum": Simban bore at his girdle a bag of gold coins with which, if the girl's pulchritude should be in any wise commensurate with the renown thereof, he was empowered to bargain for her purchase. A really fun word, even if it isn't long by the standards of the words presented in this video, is: defenestration

[@frankmerrill2366]

Autodefenestration is what the Russians claim that some dissidents do. But, no, they're just defenestrated by somebody else.

[@JaakkoPaakkanen]

You mentioned Finnish, so here is a Finnish word nerd classic: epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelllänsäkäänköpähän -- my translation: "presumably not even with his/her inability to unsystematize, I wonder?"

[@elderscrollsswimmer4833]

Or its. I figure it could refer to the language or the word itself.

[@michaelhaywood8262]

Would you consider doing an episode on negatives and negation? There are so many prefixes that can be used to negate a word in English, just a few examples, anti, de, in, non, un, among many others. Sometimes a word will have two negatives, which are not quite interchangeable, which could be perhaps described as a ''soft negative'' and a ''hard negative''.

[@frankmerrill2366]

Or, a word will have two different negatives, to use the antonym of the root word in two different senses. The one that immediately comes to mind are uninterested and disinterested, which definitely do not mean the same thing. And there are "soft" and "hard" positives: I SHALL is "harder" than I WILL.

[@timgreene4746]

Invented by my junior high teacher, Earl Robbins, unconstitutionaligoripersolitariation, meaning, the act of pretending to be taking a thing apart alone in a room. Something like that. It's been a long time. He wanted to make a word one syllable longer than supercalifraga.... and I think he succeeded. -tim