And ghoughphtheightteeau spells potato.
The Guinness Book of Records, in its 1992 and subsequent editions, declared the longest real word in the English language to be floccinaucinihilipilification at 29 letters. Defined as ‘the act of estimating (something) as worthless’, its usage has been recorded as far back as 1741. Antidisestablishmentarianism (a 19th century movement in England opposed to the separation of church and state) at 28 letters is one of English’s longest words.
I’m beginning to see why people trying to learn English would complain though. There are over ten ways to pronounce ‘ough’ (cough enough bough though thought through borough hiccough sough jough hough lough – those last few are a bit of a stretch, they’re not exactly in common usage).
Note – Have temporarily acquired a unicycle. Am attempting to master phase one – sitting on the unicycle.
5 replies on “ghoti spells fish”
Perhaps this inordinately large amount of time spent recently on contemplating the english language could be better spent bike riding?
PS: Kris Holm makes unicycling cool.
Bike riding… or unicycling perhaps? (If Adam hadn’t stolen my unicycle… that was initially his to babysit anyway… and isn’t actually mine…)
Here are a few words which are longer.
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- Fear of long words.
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia- Fear of the number 666.
I found these a last month when discussing this very topic with a professor of mine.
Hmm, I don’t know if just adding “Hippopotomonstro” on the front is a valid way of making a word longer. Dodgy people.
I never understood why nobody just added a longer suffix to ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ in order to beat that pesky floccinaucinihilipilification.
like ‘antidisestablishmentarianistic’.