Crikey! The Huffington Post’s recent article entitled The 11 Longest Words in the English Language sure stretched MY linguistic talents! I do wonder what the point of such words is though. I mean, if you can’t say the thing, let alone remember how to spell it, what’s the point? I guess the scientific ones need to have all those bits in to cover every property of the thing being named – but why can’t they agree a way of shortening it like they do in Maths, when they write something like 10 to the power 52? That Welsh town with the crazily long name,
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
is just shortened to ‘Llanfair’ by the locals, nobody bothers to actually say the whole thing on a day to day basis.
All these long words…it’s just showing-off really…or maybe it’s a new sport, ‘Extreeeeme lexicography’!
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