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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by DickieP
I seem to remember being told that the longest non-science word was "antidisestablishmentarianism" - 28 letters (meaning something to do with being conservative with a small 'c'). I may very well be wrong. In fact, I'm almost totally sure somone in the forum will prove me wrong.
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by Dinsdale Piranha
As I remember, 'antidisestablishmentarianism' means disagreeing with those who think that the monarch (in the UK) should not be the head of the Church of England.
Another word I have come across before is 'floccinaucilihilipilification' (honest) which apparently means 'the action of estimating as worthless'
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by DickieP
Like on the Antiques Roadshow, where they build the punter up and then tell them the object is worth less than their bus fare to bring it down?
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by Dinsdale Piranha
Ah, yes!
I especially like the bit where the punter feigns indifference (with no success) to the question 'Have you ever thought about how much it might be worth?'
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by 26199
It's even more fun when they say something like "Well, if you'd kept it in the box, it'd be worth £500,000 - but in this condition I'm afraid it's only worth ten quid."
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by goldfish
if you look at the word and squint slightly all the 'y's line up and form diagonal lines which give me a funny feeling in my prostate. perhaps. i should lie down.
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by 26199
A search on altavista turned up the following link: http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words11.html
It has a lot of interesting detail about various long words - and antidisestablishmentarianism doesn't even get a mention! Neither does the 'longest word' of this page... but then, let's face it, who's going to be bothered to type that lot out?
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by DickieP
Nice link. Both antid... and flocc... are on there. Good to see. Doesn't the German language have some horrendously long compound nouns? My failing memory throws up strassenbahnhaltenstelle - street train station stop place (or something) - meaning tram stop.
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by Vestboy
I htink its a ploy by the German ink and paper makers. Tram stop hardly takes up any space or ink while your word uses about ahlf a page and a bottle of ink (or two ball point pens or a ribbon on a typewriter).
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by  Bluebottle
Hmmm...
By the way, how do you spell that Welsh train station?
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by Vestboy
Something like
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrdrobwyllllantisiliogogogoch.
But I wouldn't swear to it.
Known as Llanfairp.g. I believe.
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Posted Oct 12, 1999 by Cheerful Dragon
Actually, floccinaucinihipilification is 29 letters long and therefore (just) beats antidisestablismentarianism. I believe that flocc...(etc) was invented by Shakespeare, but I don't know which of his works it crops up in and I don't know why he bothered.
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Posted Oct 13, 1999 by Ęther SPOON!
There is one town in England that has the longest website that i know of, but I cannot remember the name of it. Maybe one of you can? I know it was a link of the day on http://www.userfriendly.org
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Posted Oct 13, 1999 by Spartus
And it's a really funny sign to go past, particularly if you're not expecting it.
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Posted Nov 7, 1999 by Technoyokel (muse of poetry)
Llanfair PG was a made up name to attract tourists (it needed something to attract them!) at the start of the century. It means something like - place where the doe runs under the wych hazel by the pool on the hill - well something like that - my welsh is only at the "how are you, I am OK" stage, so this is just from what I remember
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Posted Nov 8, 1999 by Bluebottle
My mum went there once on holiday, so if it was designed to attract tourists, it worked. 
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Posted Dec 2, 1999 by zb
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch (you missed out the 3rd 'n' Vestboy ) means:
"The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near
the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave"
hth,
zb 
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Posted Dec 5, 1999 by Technoyokel (muse of poetry)
makes it sound a lot more interesting than it really is!
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Posted Dec 6, 1999 by Bluebottle
and a lot bigger too
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Posted Dec 8, 1999 by Phil
I have cnly once ever seen floccinaucinihipilification in print once
and did try and find a dictionary with it in but to no luck.
The place I saw it was the book The Number Of The Beast by Robert
Heinlein.
At least I now know what it means
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