Whopping Words

Be Word Wise

There are some words so long we make up adjectives to describe them – such as ‘ginormous’ and ‘humongous’.

Can you think of some monstrously long words? 

Your party piece might be the name of ‘that Welsh town that's almost impossible to pronounce’: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which has 58 letters. 

Most people think of antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters).

There's also a range of medical conditions with long names, which almost certainly won't trip off the tongue.

They sound monstrously difficult, but they’re not so scary when you break them down into their component parts.

For example: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters) – a half made up word describing a specific lung disease caused by inhalation of silica or quartz dust.

pneumono – to do with the lungs
ultramicroscopic – really, really small
silico – from a word meaning ‘stone’ or ‘rock’
volcano – that’s volcanic rock
coni – meaning ‘dust’
osis – indicating a medical condition.

See? Not too bad.

And then there’s Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters).

It’s a condition that’s like a condition that’s like another condition where your parathyroid isn’t working optimally.

The word that means a fear of long words is sesquipedalophobia (18 letters). It translates (from Latin) as 'the fear of words measuring a foot and a half''.

There's another humorous name for the fear of long words. It’s made up – and stretched to be even longer – for effect.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalophobia (34 letters) means 'fear of monstrous, hippopotamus-sized, foot and a half long words'.  

Nonsense, really ... but fun.