Word of the Week
Created | Updated Aug 13, 2003
In the dim dark recesses of h2g2 history
before we moved lock, stock and barrel to our new BBC
home there used to be a front page feature The h2g2 Word of the Day. It was
a way to highlight some of the lesser occurring or
largely obscurer words in the English language. Sadly
this feature was discontinued.
Until now...
Word of the Week
This week's word is courtesy of Joe C who claims to have been the
only h2g2 researcher to have used it, and then only in
his Clan Thingite name.
However zb had actually
beaten him to it, suggesting the word for 'Word of the
Day' on 29 November 1999.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
noun: a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very
fine silica dust
The word succeeded electrophotomicrographically as
the longest word in the English language recognized by
the National Puzzlers' League at the opening session
of the organization's 103rd semi-annual meeting held
yesterday at the Hotel New Yorker in 1935.
The puzzlers explained that the forty-five-letter
word is the name of a special form of silicosis caused
by ultra-microscopic particles of siliceous volcanic
dust.
It later appeared in the 1936 Supplement to Oxford
English Dictionary and Chambers.
However Joe C is wrong in his assumption that the
word has only cropped up in his thingite name on the
guide. It is used in the entry Floccinaucinihilipilification
claiming that, unlike our word of this week,
Floccinaucinihilipilification can be used in everyday
speech; you try it.There is also an unedited entry by Wondermop on the word. It also
appears in an article currently in the Alternative
Writing Workshop The Encyclopedia
of Useless Facts.
In conversations, however, you all appear to love to
show off with this word. Pencil
Queen claims to always drop it into
conversation, especially typed ones. Both Vercingetorix and Darth Zaphod have dropped it into
the everlasting sentence game thread. Queex Quimwrangler quite correctly
points out that this is the longest word in the
English Language.
This word keeps being dropped into conversations
all over the guide which makes me think that us
researchers have an inherent desire to show off as
being erudite.
From the Archive
This week's archive word is a perfect description
for this week's word.
Sesquipedalian
adjective 1. (of a word) polysyllabic; long.
2. Characterised by long words; long
winded.
It occurs in two edited entries Sesquipedalian
Obscurantism1
ZikesMan claims to be a
bit of a Sesquipedalian on his space and proves it by
listing some his favourite long words on his page.
Conversations on hootoo abound with sesquipedalian researchers dropping sesquipedalian and other sesquipedalian words into their conversation. But by far the best of these is by Uncle Ghengis who challenges the
meaning of the word. He says it should mean one and a
half feet in a poetic sense. Such as:
Look at the size of these things they must be truly
sesquipedalian! (18 inches - 1½ feet).
In other words you could use this word instead of 'It
was about yay big' (while holding you hands 18 inches
apart).
Or an alternative use:
Look at that Sesquipedalian guy - I wonder what
happened to the rest of his foot.
Apologies to any readers who are short to the
measure of half a foot in the walking department.
How can you
contribute?
- Go and check out words in the archive to
avoid duplication. - Check out the discussion threads and nominate a
word that you feel was
overlooked before discontinuation. - Suggest a new word or your forgotten word in the
Word of the Week Archive
conversation.
Have You Missed and
Floccinaucinihilipilification, mentioned already
above.
