As a collector of words, I look for the unusual, the shocking, and sometimes, the longest.  The practice of using long words has earned a special defining word:  sesquipedalianism. — quite a long word of its own.   And who practices that:  Why, a sesquipedalian, of course.

Every grade school child could rattle off a long 34 letter word with pride:  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious:  defined as: extraordinarily good, wonderful.”  (dictionary.com)  Or as Mary Poppins would say:  “a word to use when you have nothing else to say.”  But knowledge notwithstanding, I would never use that word in public, for fear that someone may ask me to spell it.   Indeed, long words feel good occasionally, as they roll off one’s tongue, but the truth be known, shorter words remain a lot easier to spell. 

Curiously, have you ever wished to know the longest English words appearing in a standard dictionary?  Well, page through one, and you will confirm the following:

The winner:  pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovvolcanoconious — a 45 letter mouthful defining a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano.  (dictionary.com)   Most likely, it could be shortened drastically to “silicosis,” but sometimes one needs to take in the big picture.

A twenty percent shorter entry weighs in at 36 letters:  Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.  Please note that we find some curious roots for bigness in the word, including “Hippo,” “monstro” and the now familiar, “sesquipedalia” to suggest its meaning; i. e., a fear (phobia) of long words.  When breaking down this word, I wonder whether the lexicographer left something on the cutting room floor, as the initial portion lops off “amus,” the end of hippopotamus, and substitutes an “o.”  I loathe taking short cuts in long words.    

Another interesting long word, a mere piker weighing in at 29 letters, is floccinaucinihilipilification, defines as:  the action or habit of estimating something as worthless.  (dictionary.com)  I suspect most of us could identify a string of shorter words with more descriptive power to describe something as worthless.  How about: rot. 

To be sure, none of the above long words show up often in everyday parlance, but some everyday words do qualify as long; for example:  “Incomprehensibilities” (21 Letters): defined as “impossible to comprehend or understand; and “uncharacteristically” (20 letters):, defined as in the manner of something that is not typical of a person or thing.” Both words remain in common use, but for some reason do not sound all that long.       

I could go on and divulge several more long words, but since this post is already too long, I will sign off with a short one:  “bye.”