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has anyone ever heard a word in the english language longer than Floccinaucinihilipilification, which i assure you is a word and that is the correct spelling.

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Besides floccinaucinihilipilification, which I ran across as a youth in Fowler's, then there was pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which I came across somewheres else, but there is some doubt. Best to read up on it in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_English



Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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pikers.

methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanyl-
glutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanyl-
valylprolylphenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycyl-
isoleucylglutamylglutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucyl-
isoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucyl-
glycylisoleucylprolylphenylalanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartyl-
glycylprolylthreonylisoleucylglutaminylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucyl-
arginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanyl-
glutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucylalanylleucyl-
isoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucylprolyl-
isoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalyl-
phenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyl-
tyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylseryl-
valylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylseryl-
alanylprolylphenylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidyl-
asparaginylvalylalanylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolyl-
prolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminyl-
isoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucyl-
leucylserylarginylalanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginyl-
arginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyl-
lysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparaginylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucyl-
glutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylserylalanylprolylaspartyl-
glutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanylglycylalanylalanyl-
glycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalyllysylisoleucyl-
isoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylprolyl-
glutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalyl-
glutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine

(that's 1913 letters)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methionylglutaminy...serine

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Yeahbut.

Anyone can string together a bunch of letters that have a pseudo appearance to a word.

One word I remember from my freshman English teacher was velocipedstrianisticulostianarianologist. According to him it means a person who rides a penny farthing. I think it's prolly made up, but it stuck with me all these years. Hm. that was 1959!



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re:Anyone can string together a bunch of letters that have a pseudo appearance to a word.



many moons ago, (um, somewhere in the 1980's) scientific american, in their column "computer recreations" had a small LISP program (and an genaral outline for a BASIC program) for writing psuedo language.(it was about 100 lines of code--back in those dark ages, you typed in the code yourself for a 'copy'!)

i took french in HS--and i "know" what french looks like..
aux, la, le, oiu--all 'distictively" french looking..

que, habla, de, --all help me recognize Spanish..

German has its own 'distictive look" as does English..

th is valid in english, and so is sh, ch and wh but dh is pretty rare (dharma comes to mind--and adopted word and not many others)
Ph works in english, (but also in German)--

well the simple program generated random combination of letters based on them most commonly used letter (Hello Eta!) and 'letter pairs" and combination, and on average word size (German words on average are longer than English words) and then generated psuedo text--

it was such a fun little program ...


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I, also, remember a program (but was it in Pascal or BASIC?) that implemented collecting n-gram data from texts, and which generated random gibberish, but looking not only like the language in question but also the style (e.g., Joyce, Hemmingway, et al.). I think the original article was in the '79s, so the '80s one might have been an update.



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Yeahbut...

pikers.

methionylglutaminyl...alanylthreonylarginylserine

(that's 1913 letters)


...you could spell that in seven letters if you really wanted to: PROTEIN.

I can't recognize it, but that 270-or-so-amino-acid string probably has another (and more common) name. Globin, or albumin, or something like that.


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well gosh, then I guess it really is a character string that is recognized as standing for something that actually exists and isn't just a "pseudo.. word". I guess I have to give credit to Mrs. Byrne for *this one then. ; )


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Did the source give the more recognizable name for tha protein? Just curious.


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<sigh> from the Wiki-link:

Methionylglutaminy...serine is a scientific name for tryptophan synthase, which is made up of 267 amino acids. It has appeared written down a number of times and has 1913 letters.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, 18th edition, it is the longest chemical word for C1289H2051N343O375S8.

Lots of much larger proteins exist and their "scientific names" can be written in the same way. If nobody has actually bothered to write down such a scientific name, it is a fine metaphysical point whether the names should be said to exist, and if not, whether this particular string of letters representing a rather average, modest-sized protein is better qualified to be called a "word".



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