The Longest Word
What is the longest English word? Interestingly, this question, which often intrigues both children and adults, offers no ready answer.
If you are a fan of Mary Poppins, your selection might well be the 34 letter 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' from the song of the same name. However, those with a serious interest in the field often reject words such as these because they are deemed to be nonsense words. .
When I was a kid,
the most common answer was 'antidisestablishmentarianism,' with its impressive 28 letters and 12 syllables. The meaning of this word is as complicated as its long sequence of sounds. It referred to a political position originating in nineteenth-century Britain, that opposed proposals to remove the Church of England's status as the state church of Ireland and Wales. (For those interested in what happened to the movement, it went as follows: In Ireland the Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871. In Wales four Church of England dioceses were disestablished in 1920, subsequently becoming the Church in Wales. Antidisestablishmentarian members of the Free Church of Scotland delayed merger with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland in a dispute about the position of the Church of Scotland.)
But as we well know, language is steadily changing and the relatively meager 'antidisestablishmentarianism' has been superseded many times. Currently, according to the Oxford English Dictionary and the 2007 edition of Guinness Book of World Records , the longest word is the 40 letter 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanocon'. It is a medical term coined to describe a lung disease caused by the "inhalation of very fine silica dust from volcanoes." The condition restricts breathing, and is more commonly referred to as "silicosis".
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