Longest Worm - Page 5

davar55 · 2015-11-25, 20:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by only_human

One sign language quip is to place two closed fists ('s' letters) next to the ears as a sign for Sears.

How would one say antidisestablishmentarianism in ASL?

science_man_88 · 2015-11-25, 20:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by davar55

How would one say antidisestablishmentarianism in ASL?

though I don't know ASL I would think by parts of the word or signs for suffixes, or signing out the meaning of the word.

only_human · 2015-11-25, 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by davar55

How would one say antidisestablishmentarianism in ASL?

A person would likely fingerspell that. There is a joke on the web showing a mangled hand after attempting it.

My first teacher, Ed, would look over a student's shoulder when the student messed up signing. He was also a stage actor and I always suspected he was looking at the wall to keep his face composed when seeing really bad signing. I thought this because many signers are extremely facially expressive when signing. In fact signing is usually done with the hands in places that allow the other person to watch the face and hands at the same time.

Anyway whenever Ed looked over the shoulder like this, inevitably the signing student would start making broader gestures to try to bring the attention back. It was hard not to; I did it too.

I was pretty bad at fingerspelling and there were times when Ed was looking over my shoulder while I was staring at my own hand in disbelief.

ewmayer · 2015-11-26, 04:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by science_man_88

hippopotomonstrosequipedaliaphobia I think is technically the longest in english without chemical names last I checked.

As a kid my copy of the Guinness book of world records listed that honor as belonging to 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' [45 letters], which I verified the next time I vistied a library containing the particular dictionary referenced (IIRC it was a super-duper libarary-reference edition of M-W).

Quote:

Originally Posted by kladner

Isn't German noted for long, strung-together words?

See some examples of that fine art earlier in this thread.

davar55 · 2015-11-27, 12:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

As a kid my copy of the Guinness book of world records listed that honor as belonging to 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' [45 letters], which I verified the next time I vistied a library containing the particular dictionary referenced (IIRC it was a super-duper libarary-reference edition of M-W).
...

And my invention antidisuncategorizationalismophobiatizinglynessmentarianism [65 lettters] did,
as one purpose, intend to exceed but not overwhelm that word pneumo...coniosis.

I didn't want a disease to win out.

jasong · 2015-11-30, 00:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by davar55

And my invention antidisuncategorizationalismophobiatizinglynessmentarianism [65 lettters] did,
as one purpose, intend to exceed but not overwhelm that word pneumo...coniosis.

I didn't want a disease to win out.

What's the definition of your word? Looks like something about resisting categorization.

I don't know, maybe it describes God's attitude when He made me. I confuse the hell out of people with my behavior and opinions, even though it all seems to make sense to me.

davar55 · 2015-11-30, 05:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by davar55

And my invention antidisuncategorizationalismophobiatizinglynessmentarianism [65 lettters] did,
as one purpose, intend to exceed but not overwhelm that word pneumo...coniosis.
I didn't want a disease to win out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jasong

What's the definition of your word? Looks like something about resisting categorization.
]I don't know, maybe it describes God's attitude when He made me. I confuse the hell out of people with my behavior and opinions, even though it all seems to make sense to me.

Antidisuncategorizabilizationalismophobiatizinglynessmentarianism (65 letters, 30 syllables)
= The philosophical attempt to attack the mind by destroying its concepts of conceptual categorization.

Based on
ANTI+DIS+UN+CATEGORIZABILIZATION+AL+ISM+O-PHOBIATIZING-LY-NESS-MENT-ARIAN-ISM

Categorizabilization
= CATEGORY+ize+abilization

Abilization
= to make ABLE or capable

Phobiatizing
= creating fear

ewmayer · 2015-12-21, 02:13

Anybody can string together a bunch of pre-and-suffixes (or nouns in languages like German) to make up a really long "word" - more of a challenge is finding long words 'in the wild', preferably outside the chemistry literature. Came across this 30-letter gem of a compound noun while browsing around a German-language shopping site (gift for a Euro-side relative) today - I give it in its original form, as descriptive text for a clickable widget:

Verfügbarkeitsbenachrichtigung aktivieren

Roughly, "enable availability notification".

davar55 · 2015-12-21, 07:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Anybody can string together a bunch of pre-and-suffixes (or nouns in languages like German) to make up a really long "word" - more of a challenge is finding long words 'in the wild', preferably outside the chemistry literature. Came across this 30-letter gem of a compound noun while browsing around a German-language shopping site (gift for a Euro-side relative) today - I give it in its original form, as descriptive text for a clickable widget:
Verfügbarkeitsbenachrichtigung aktivieren
Roughly, "enable availability notification".

Well I won't argue which is more of a challenge,
searching the wild or creative construction.

Verfug-bar-keits-bena-chrichti-gung can probably be parsed too.

And
antidisuncategorizabilizationalismophobiatizinglynessmentarianism
has a constructive etymology and history,
unlike another randomly strung series of prefixes and suffixes.

Nick · 2015-12-21, 09:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

more of a challenge is finding long words 'in the wild'

Yes: in Dutch (for example), words can be much longer without the length becoming a distraction.
There are several "long" words on this page:
http://studenten-faq.leidenuniv.nl/f...lingsprogramma
including "universiteitsbredeovereenkomsten" (university-wide agreements).

davar55 · 2015-12-21, 11:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick

Yes: in Dutch (for example), words can be much longer without the length becoming a distraction.
There are several "long" words on this page:
http://studenten-faq.leidenuniv.nl/f...lingsprogramma
including "universiteitsbredeovereenkomsten" (university-wide agreements).

That would be translated in AMerican ENglish as
university-wide-agreements
a hyphenated compound "word".

European string-'em-togethers are no big deal.

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2015-12-21, 02:13	#52
ewmayer ∂²ω=0 Sep 2002 República de California 2D77₁₆ Posts	Anybody can string together a bunch of pre-and-suffixes (or nouns in languages like German) to make up a really long "word" - more of a challenge is finding long words 'in the wild', preferably outside the chemistry literature. Came across this 30-letter gem of a compound noun while browsing around a German-language shopping site (gift for a Euro-side relative) today - I give it in its original form, as descriptive text for a clickable widget: Verfügbarkeitsbenachrichtigung aktivieren Roughly, "enable availability notification".