Monday 28 March 2011

The longest English words – Interesting facts

I thought it would be interesting to know what the longest English words are. I came across these few words that are regarded as the longest ‘real’ words and are actually found in dictionaries.

The longest ‘real’ word is found in the Oxford English dictionary. It consists of 45 letters and goes like this… (Almost like I intend singing a song) PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS. It is also spelled: PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOKONIOSIS. Note that it is only the ‘c’ and the ‘k’ that differs. This word is meant to describe a lung disease caused by breathing in particles of siliceous volcanic dust.

The second longest word is HEPATICOCHOLANGIOCHOLECYSTENTEROSTOMIES, which consist of 37 letters and describes a surgical creation of a connection between the gall bladder and a hepatic duct and between the intestine and the gall bladder. Yeah I know, not even with the description of the wont do I understand what it means.

The 3rd longest word with 34 letter is the one we all aught to know. Most of us learned it when we were still youngsters and into Merry Poppins. Yeah!! You guessed it: SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS!!! This is my favorite one, because it is the only one I can pronounce properly without reading it like a sentence.

There are many interesting words. I think the longest word in the world is SMILES, because there is a mile between the first and last letters!!

3 comments:

  1. LOL! Missy, I like this! Thank goodness we didn't study medicine...I would've failed the exam trying to spell those words, let alone pronounce 'em.
    :) SMILES! goes A LONG WAY!

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  2. Ha ha ha! Aaaawh, that's so sweet. This one really got me smiling :-)

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  3. lol ok so not all the very long words have to do with medicine!

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