photo by mcgladdery

Q is the only letter that does not occur in the names of the states of the U. S.

MONDAY is the only day of the week that has an anagram, DYNAMO

KÄRNTEN (one of the states of Austria)
has 8 pairs of alternating dits and dahs in Morse code

DIVIDIVI (a tropical American tree) is the longest word composed solely of Roman numeral letters

FORTY is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order.

ONE is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.

In German, EINS and ACHT are the only numbers with their letters in alphabetical order.

In German, EINE MILLION is the first number using the vowel "O" and the first using the consonant "M."

FOUR has four letters; no other number has this property in English.

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more on the original pages of

Jeff Miller

http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words.html

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 1

Last revision: Oct. 13, 2007

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MISCELLANY 1

ACCEDED, CABBAGE, BAGGAGE, DEFACED, EFFACED,
DECEDED, DEEDEED, DEFADED, DEGAGEE, GEAGGED, and
FEEDBAG are seven-letter words which can be played on a
musical instrument. CABBAGED, DEBAGGED, and BAGGAGED
are eight-letter words [Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett].

The Hungarian words újjáépítéséről ("about its reconstruction") and
újjáválaszthatóságáról ("about his/her re-electability")
have seven accent marks. Also in Hungarian, alelölülő means "deputy chairperson" (lit.: "deputy
fore-sitter"), although this is a made-up word that is not in use. Some words with five accent or diacritical marks
are hétérogénéité (French for "heterogeneity") and

Héréhérétué (an atoll in the Pacific Ocean near Tahiti). In Hungarian, a word
which is widely used to test whether the diacritical marks remain intact (e.g. in sending an e-mail)
is árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép ("flood-proof
mirror drilling machine"). This is probably the shortest text which contains all the possible accented letters
in Hungarian [Ádám Szegi, Tamas Lepesfalvi, Stuart Kidd].

ADCOMSUBORDCOMPHIBSPAC is the longest acronym in the 1965
edition of the Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations
Dictionary. It is a Navy term standing for Administrative Command,
Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet Subordinate Command [Dickson].
Another acronym, PUMCODOXPURSACOMLOPAR,
stands for "pulse-modulated coherent Doppler-effect X-band pulse-repetition
synthetic-array pulse compression lobe planar array" (from Willard Espy).
COMSUBCOMNELMCOMHEDSUPPACT (26 letters) stands for Commander,
Subordinate Command, U.S. Naval Forces Eastern
Atlantic and Mediterranean, Commander Headquarters
Support Activities [Charles Turner].

However, the world's longest acronym according to the Guinness Book of Words

is NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT (56 letters, 54 in Cyrillic).
Found in the Concise Dictionary of Soviet Terminology, it means: The laboratory for shuttering,
reinforcement, concrete and ferroconcrete operations for composite-monolithic and monolithic constructions
of the Department of the Technology of Building-assembly operations of the Scientific Research Institute of
the Organization for building mechanization and technical aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the USSR
[Stuart Kidd].

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th ed.) PAKISTAN is an acronym for
the five Northern units of India - Punjab, North-West Frontier (Afghan) Province, Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan,
and was coined in 1933 by Choudhary Rahmat Ali (1895-1951). However, according to the World Book Encyclopedia (1976),
Pakistan means "land of the pure" in Urdu [Charles Turner].

AEGILOPS (alternate spelling of egilops, an ulcer in a part of
the eye) is apparently the longest word in W2 which consists of letters in
alphabetical order. Aegilops is also also a genus of mollusc
and a genus of grass [Charles Turner].
CHILLLOSS (the
opposite of a heatloss) has its letters in alphabetical order,
although this word may not be in any dictionary [Word Ways].
BEEFILY and BILLOWY are the longest such words in
OSPD2+.

Seven-letter words from the OED2 with their letters in alphabetical order are:
ACCENTY, ACCOMPT, ADDILLS, AFFORST, ALLOQUY, BEGHOST, BELLOOT, DEGLORY, FILLOPS, and FILLOTT
[Philip Bennett].

Six-letter words with their letters in alphabetical order include:
ABBEIT, ABBESS, ABBEST, ABDEST, ABHORS, ACCENT, ACCEPT, ACCESS, ACCLOY,
ACCOST, ACHILL, ACKNOW, ADDEEM, ADDERS, ADEMPT, ADHORT, ADILLS, ADIPSY,
ADORTY, AFFLUX, AGHILL, ALMOST, ANOPSY, BEFIST, BEFLOW, BEGILT, BEGINS,
BEGIRT, BEKNOW, BELLOW, BENOTT, BIJOUX, BILLOT, BIOPSY, BLOOPS, BLOTTY, CHILLS,
CHILLY, CHIMPS, CHINNY, CHINTZ, CHIPPY, CHIRRS, CHITTY, CHIVVY, CHOOPS, CHOOSY,
CHOPPY, CLOOPS, CLOTTY, DEFLOW, DEFLUX, DEHORT, DIKKOP, DILUVY, DIMPSY,
EFFLUX, EFFORT, ELLOPS, FILMOT, FLOORS, FLOPPY, FLOSSY, GHOSTY, GILLOT,
GLOPPY, GLOSSY, GOOSSY, KNOPPY, and KNOTTY

[Philip Bennett, Bruce D. Wilner, Mike Turniansky, Denis Borris, Stuart Kidd, Eric Brahinsky].

The following words in the on-line Scrabble dictionary have symmetrically distributed letters:
WIZARD, HOVELS, BEVY, GIRT, GRIT, IZAR, LEVO, TRIG, VOLE, WOLD, BY, LO, and SH
[Mark D. Lew, Dan Tilque, Bruce D. Wilner].
There is also ZYBA (a town in Kansas), which was named by taking the last two
letters and the first two letters of the alphabet [Don Blevins in Peculiar, Uncertain & Two Egg].

POLK is the only last name of a U. S. President with symmetrically distributed letters.
"Symmetrically distributed letters" means that, for example, in BEVY the B and Y are equidistant from
the center, as are E and V.

The following ten-letter words have one occurrence of one letter, two occurrences of another letter,
three occurrences of another letter, and four occurrences of another letter:
COEFFEOFFE,
REMEMBERER,
SERENENESS,
SHAHANSHAH,
SLEEVELESS,
TENTRETENE.
The list of six-letter words with a similar property is very long, but it includes these common words:
BANANA,
COCOON,
DEEMED,
DOODAD,
GOOGOL
HORROR,
MAMMAL,
PEPPER,
POWWOW,
TATTOO. [Philip Bennett, Jeffrey Shallit]

ASTHMA begins and ends with a vowel and has no other vowels in between.
Some less common words of six or more letters with this property are

ISTHMI (alternate plural of isthmus),
APHTHA (OSPD3),
ELTCHI (SOWPODS),
ORMSBY (name of several towns in the U. S.),
ACHCHA (a S. Asian expression meaning "is that so"),

ANDHRA (an Indian State),
ANGSTY (adjective of angst),
ORCHHA (an Indian State),
ORPHNE (Greek nymph in Hades),
ARCHLY, ICHTHY, and ARCHSPY.

There are also these obsolete or obscure words from the OED2:
ARMTHE, ERMTHE, ARCTLY, ARGHLY, ENGHLE, ESSSSE, ERSHRY, ERSTLY, IRSCHE, UNCKLE, USSCHA, and USSCHO
[Mike Turniansky, Mark D. Lew, Stewart Kidd, Philip C. Bennett].

Some two-syllable words which become one-syllable words by adding a letter or letters are:
AGUE/PLAGUE,
AGUE/VAGUE,
AVE/CAVE,
AVE/HAVE,
RUGGED/SHRUGGED,
AGED/RAGED,
AGED/STAGED,
BOA/BOAT,
OLE,SOLE
OLE/WHOLE,
RAGGED/DRAGGED,
NAKED/SNAKED,
SOUR/SOURCE,
WINGÉD/TWINGED [Stuart Kidd, Dan Tilque].

Some common words which change from one to three syllables upon the
addition of just one letter are: ARE/AREA, CAME/CAMEO,
CRIME/CRIMEA, GAPE/AGAPE, HOSE/HOSEA, JUDE/JUDEA, LIEN/ALIEN,
OLE/OLEO, RODE/RODEO, ROME/ROMEO, SMILE/SIMILE and WHINE/WAHINE.
(Wahine is defined as a Polynesian woman or a female surfer in MWCD11.) There
are numerous other examples involving more obscure words [Jim Lizzi,
Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett, Charles Turner].

ANHUNGRY is one answer to the question, "What's the other word
besides 'angry' and 'hungry' that ends in 'gry'?" This is the most
frequently asked question of the editors of Merriam-Webster.
Actually, "angry" and "hungry" are the only two words in
common use ending in -gry, but quite a few obsolete or obscure words
can be found in unabridged dictionaries. Among them are
ANHUNGRY, used by Shakespeare, and AGGRY BEAD, both of
which are in W3. The only -GRY words in RHUD2 are ANGRY, HUNGRY,
HALF-ANGRY, OVERANGRY, and UNANGRY. Chambers has

AGGRY (an adjective describing certain ancient West African
beads) and AHUNGRY (oppressed with hunger). OSPD has
PUGGRY (a variant form of the more usual PUGGAREE, a scarf
wrapped around a sun helmet). The OED has angry, an-hungry, begry,
conyngry, gry, higry pigry, hungry, iggry, meagry, menagry, nangry,
podagry, skugry, unangry.

[An alternate solution this question is the word "language." The
person actually says, "Think of words ending in -gry. Hungry and
angry are 2 of them. There are three words in the english
language. What is the third? You use it every day. If you paid
attention I have already told you the answer." More on the -gry
question can be found at

http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/gry.htm

and at

http://www.tempe.gov/library/netsites/gry.htm.]

On Aug. 18, 2002, the New York Times Magazine
had the following sentence: "Baseball suffered the triple
threat of steroids, strikes, and Seligry." This -gry word, which is not
in any dictionaries, is a play on the name
of Bud Selig, the Commissioner of Baseball [Fred Shapiro]

Beijing has three dotted letters in a row (in lower case).
Other words with multiple dotted letters are
remijia,
bogijiab,
pirijiri,
kharijite,
gaijin (in OSPD3),

Fiji,
Hajji,
hijinks,
hijiki (a type of seaweed),
Ujiji (where Stanley found Livingstone in 1871),
Ajijic and Pijijiapan (cities in Mexico),
jinjili (an alternative name for "sesame seed"),
ijijimò (Nauruan for the adjective "lean," and Nauruan is a palindrome!),

Shijiazhuang (Chinese city),
Nijjar (Jat clan from the Northern Indian state of Punjab),
Frijj (a brand of milkshake sold mainly in the United Kingdom),
Nasdijj (Nasdijj [occasionally Yinishye Nasdijj] is the name taken by the author of three books published between 2000 and 2004),
Kimchijjigae (a spicy stew-like dish cooked and served boiling hot in a stone pot, widely available in Korea),
Sojiji (one of two main temples of the Soto sect of Zen Buddhism),

Jijia (a river in the Moldavia region of Romania),
Niijima (a Japanese surname),
Iijima (a Japanese surname),
Minoru Niijima (the artist who drew the cover graphic for Edward R.
Tufte's book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
[Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett, Steve Lawson].

In Dutch, there are jij (you), pijjekker (pea-jacket,
although not found in dictionaries),

schrooiijzer (upstanding cutting iron for bars, rods),
sjiiet (follower of the Shia), snijijzer (cutting
iron), uitdijing (expansion), and zijig (effeminate)
[Oscar van Vlijmen, René Davids].

In Lithuanian, jiji is an archaic Lithuanian form of "him"
consisting exclusively of dotted letters, and kraujijimas is
archaic for "staining with blood" [Juozas Rimas].

In Swahili, jiji means "city" and kijiji means a small city or village
[Gerald Gathuto].

In Hungarian, jöjjön (meaning "he should come") has seven
dots in a row [Maryam Frazer].

In Finnish, pääjääjää
(meaning "the main stayer," partitive case) has 14 dots in a row,
according to Pertti Malo, who writes that a person at the
Research Institute for the Languages of Finland "writes
to me that 'in theory' she would approve this word." Malo writes that there are so many
ways to create a Finnish word that it would be impossible to collect them all in a dictionary.
A
website

(in Finnish) estimate there are 10²⁴ Finnish words.

A property development company in the Canadian territory of
Nunavut is the Katujjijiit Development Corporation,
with six consecutive dotted letters [Craig Rowland].

The earliest known use of CATENARY in English is by President
Thomas Jefferson. The earliest known use of MILEAGE is by

Benjamin Franklin.

CATERCORNER has eight spellings in W3: catercorner,
cater-cornered, catacorner, cata-cornered, catty-corner,
catty-cornered, kitty-corner, and kitty-cornered. Another dictionary
has cater-corner.

Barry Harridge reports that in Chambers the eight spellings of
CATERCORNER are surpassed by the number of variants for
GALLABEA which can also be spelled gallabeah, gallabia,
gallabiah, gallabieh, gallabiya, gallabiyah, gallabiyeh, galabea,
galabeah, galabia, galabiah, galabieh, galabiya, galabiyah,
galabiyeh. Friederike E. Droegemueller adds these spellings:
Djellabah, Jellaba, Djallabea, Jalaba, Djelaba. She writes, "I saw
all of these spellings, and more, in Morocco. It is, by the way, the
same garment, regardless of spelling."

Eric Brahinsky has found that W3 gives ten spellings for the plural
of Kirghiz (the name of an Asian people):

KIRGHIZ, KIRGHIZES, KIRGHESE, KIRGHESES, KIRGHIS, KIRGHISES, KIRGIZ, KIRGIZES, KHIRGHIZ, and KHIRGHIZES.
(The singular form has five spellings in W3.)

Gloria Donen Sosin says she has found 16 spellings for
HANUKKAH (in alphabetical order): Channuka, Channukah,
Chanuka, Chanukah, Chanuko, Hannuka, Hannukah, Hanuka, Hanukah,
Hanukkah, Kanukkah, Khannuka, Khannukah, Khanuka, Khanukah, and
Khanukkah. (Her list may include transliterations from Hebrew to
English.) James A. Landau has found Chanuccah in an 1872 prayer
book.

The name MUAMMAR KHADAFI has 32 variants according to the
Library of Congress.
(1) Muammar Qaddafi, (2) Mo'ammar
Gadhafi, (3) Muammar Kaddafi, (4) Muammar Qadhafi, (5)
Moammar El Kadhafi, (6) Muammar Gadafi, (7) Mu'ammar
al-Qadafi, (8) Moamer El Kazzafi, (9) Moamar
al-Gaddafi, (10) Mu'ammar Al Qathafi, (11) Muammar Al
Qathafi, (12) Mo'ammar el-Gadhafi, (13) Moamar El
Kadhafi, (14) Muammar al-Qadhafi, (15) Mu'ammar
al-Qadhdhafi, (16) Mu'ammar Qadafi, (17) Moamar
Gaddafi, (18) Mu'ammar Qadhdhafi, (19) Muammar
Khaddafi, (20) Muammar al-Khaddafi, (21) Mu'amar
al-Kadafi, (22) Muammar Ghaddafy, (23) Muammar
Ghadafi, (24) Muammar Ghaddafi, (25) Muamar Kaddafi,
(26) Muammar Quathafi, (27) Muammar Gheddafi, (28)
Muamar Al-Kaddafi, (29) Moammar Khadafy, (30) Moammar
Qudhafi, (31) Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, (32) Mulazim Awwal
Mu'ammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi
[Charles Turner].

David Fabian performed a Google search using various spellings on Dec. 20-21, 2003, and found the following
number of hits for each:
Gaddafi, 60600;
Gadaffi, 26800;
Qaddafi, 23900;
Khadafi, 18300;
Gadhafi, 17600;
Kadhafi, 17000;
Kadafi, 14300;
Qadhafi, 12900;
Kaddafi, 10000;
Gadafi, 6910;
Ghaddafi, 4310;
Khaddafi, 3920;
Khadafy, 3890;
Khadaffi, 2840;
Ghadafi, 2550;
Qadaffi, 2200;
Ghadaffi, 2070;
Gadafy, 1760;
Kadaffi, 1490;
Qadafi, 1450;
Khadaffy, 1350;
Gaddhafi, 897;
Gaddaffi, 861;
Khaddafy, 802;
Gaddafy, 670;
Ghadhafi, 462;
Gadhaffi, 442;
Qaddaffi, 381;
Qaddhafi, 304;
Khadhafi, 289;
Kadafy, 270;
Gadaffy, 245;
Kaddhafi, 196;
Kaddaffi, 187;
Kadhaffi, 181;
Kadaffy, 178;
Ghaddaffi, 156;
Khaddaffi, 133;
Qaddafy, 129;
Kaddafy, 127;
Ghadafy, 121;
Ghaddafy, 114;
Qhadafi, 101;
Qadhaffi, 98;
Qadafy, 86;
Qadaffy, 72;
Kadhafy, 71;
Khaddhafi, 60;
Ghadaffy, 60;
Qhaddafi, 39;
Qhadaffi, 33;
Khaddaffy, 29;
Gadhafy, 29;
Kadhaffy, 28;
Gaddhaffi, 27;
Gaddaffy, 24;
Qhadafy, 24;
Qadhafy, 24;
Ghaddhafi, 20;
Kaddaffy, 20;
Qhaddafy, 14;
Kaddhaffi, 13;
Khadhaffi, 10;
Ghadhaffi, 10;
Qhaddaffi, 9;
Gadhaffy, 8;
Kaddhafy, 7;
Ghaddaffy, 4;
Qaddhaffi, 3;
Qhadaffy, 3;
Ghaddhaffi, 2;
Qhadhafi, 2;
Gaddhafy, 2;
Qaddhafy, 2;
Qadhaffy, 2;
Kaddhaffy, 1;
Ghadhafy, 1;
Qaddaffy, 1.
Other spellings may exist.

In May, 1986, when Khadafy responded to a letter from
some second-graders at Maxfield Magnet School in St.
Paul, Minnesota, he signed the letter in
Arabic script, beneath which was typed "Moammar
El-Gadhafi." This was the first known indication of
his own feelings on the subject, and the wire services
and many newspapers promptly announced they would
switch. But Time and the New York Times remain
holdouts [Charles Turner].

The only countries in the world with one
syllable in their names are CHAD, FRANCE, GREECE, LAOS (one pronunciation), and

SPAIN. There is also WALES, although it
is not an independent country [Philip Bennett].

CHINCHERINCHEE, which the OED2 describes as a common variant
of chinkerinchee, has one letter occurring once, two letters
occurring twice, and three letters occurring three times.
The only other words with this property are
IMMINENTNESSES, INSTANTIATIONS, OPPOSITIONISTS, and SANITATIONISTS

[Rudy Wang, Stuart Kidd].

CONSERVATIONALISTS/CONVERSATIONALISTS is an example of a
long transposal (words which are anagrams of each
other). Some others are:
INTERNATIONALISM/INTERLAMINATIONS,
REPRESENTATIONALISM/MISREPRESENTATIONAL, and
HYDROXYDESOXYCORTICOSTERONE/HYDROXYDEOXYCORTICOSTERONES
[Craig Rowland, Charles Turner].

The longest "well-mixed" transposals (no more than three consecutive
letters in common) are BASIPARACHROMATIN/MARSIPOBRANCHIATA (17
letters) and THERMONASTICALLY/HEMATOCRYSTALLIN (16 letters)
[Dan Tilque].

The longest three-way well-mixed transposal is
INTERROGATIVES/REINVESTIGATOR/TERGIVERSATION (14 letters) [Dan
Tilque].

A 15-letter well-mixed transposal is MEGACHIROPTERAN/CINEMATOGRAPHER
[Charles Turner].

The longest "perfectly mixed" transposals (no consecutive letter
combinations) are NITROMAGNESITE/REGIMENTATIONS and

ROTUNDIFOLIATE/TITANOFLUORIDE (both 14 letters) [Dan Tilque].

(According to Dan Tilque, the transposal definitions and results are
from from Word Recreations by A. Ross Eckler, although the
results were discovered mostly by members of the National Puzzler's
League, without the aid of computers.)

DABCHICK (a small bird) is among the very few words that
contain ABC. Some others: ABCOULOMB, ABCHALAZAL, ABCAREE,
CRABCAKE, DRABCLOTH, ABC SOIL, BABCOCK TEST, NABCHEAT,

and
ABCIXIMAB (a human-murine monoclonal antibody fragment that inhibits the aggregation of platelets)
[Philip C. Bennett]. (In W3, ABC is a word, meaning "alphabet.")
Allowing intervening punctuation, there is
SAB-CAT (a saboteur) in W2 and W3 [Susan Thorpe in
WordsWorth]. Proper nouns include ABCOUDE
(city in the Netherlands), ZABCIKVILLE (city in Texas), and

ABCHASIA (a small breakaway republic on the Black Sea which is or was
part of the Republic of Georgia).
There are also B. abchasica, C. abchasicum, and H. abchasicus,
all three of which are botanical names for Paeonia Plants found in the Caucasus
[Philip Bennett, Charles Turner].

DEEDED has each of its letters appearing three times. Other such words are
GEGGEE (the victim of a hoax),

SESTETTES, ESSEES (OED),
SEESES (OED),
FEFFEE (trustee of public land, OED),
SHEESHEHS (tobacco pipes, F & W)
[Stuart Kidd].

DORD is a non-existent word entered into the second edition of
Webster's New International Dictionary by mistake. The
following is taken from The Story of Webster's Third: Philip
Gove's Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics by Herbert C.
Morton (1994):

When the guidelines for etymology in
Webster's Third were nearing completion, Gove took time out to
add the story of dord to the lore of how things can go wrong
in dictionary making. Dord was a word that had appeared
spontaneously and had found a quiet niche in the English language two
decades earlier. It was recorded in Webster's Second in 1934
on page 771, where it remained undetected for five years. It
disappeared from the dictionary a year later without ever having
entered common parlance. The facts, which had been established years
earlier through a search of company files, were as follows, as
abridged from Gove's explanation.

The lack of an etymology for dord, meaning "density," was
noted by an editor on February 28, 1939, when he was perusing the
dictionary. Startled by the omission, he went to the files to track
down what had happened and what needed to be done. There, he found,
first, a three-by-five white slip that had been sent to the company
by a consultant in chemistry on July 31, 1931, bearing the notation
"D or d, cont/ density." It was intended to be the basis for entering
an additional abbreviation at the letter D in the next
edition. The notation "cont," short for "continued," was to alert the
typist to the fact that there would be several such entries for
abbreviations at D.

A change in the organization of the dictionary possibly added to the
confusion that followed. For the 1934 edition, all abbreviations were
to be assembled in a separate "Abbreviations" section at the back of
the book; in the previous edition words and abbreviations appeared
together in a single alphabetical listing (which is how they again
appeared in the Third Edition.) But after the original slip was typed
for editorial handling, it was misdirected. Eventually, it came to be
treated with the words rather than with the abbreviations.

Th editorial stylist who received the first typed version should have
marked "or" to be set in italics to indicate that the letters were
abbreviations (D or d). But instead, she drew a continuous
wavy line underneath to signify that "D or d" should be set in
boldface in the manner of an entry word, and a label was added,
"Physics & Chem." Since entry words were to be typed with a space
between letters, the editorial stylist may have inferred that the
typist had intended to write d o r d; the mysterious "cont"
was ignored. These errors should have been caught when the word was
retyped on a different color slip for the printer, but they were not.
The stylist who received this version crossed out the "cont" and
added the part-of-speech label n for noun.

"As soon as someone else entered the pronunciation," Gove wrote,
"dord was given the slap on the back that sent breath into its
being. Whether the etymologist ever got a chance to stifle it, there
is no evidence. It simply has no etymology. Thereafter, only a
proofreader had final opportunity at the word, but as the proof
passed under his scrutiny he was at the moment not so alert and
suspicious as usual."

The last slip in the file -- added in 1939 -- was marked "plate
change imperative/urgent." The entry was deleted, and the space was
closed up by lengthening the entry that followed. In 1940 bound
books began appearing without the ghost word but with a new
abbreviation. In the list of meanings for the abbreviation "D
or d" appeared the phrase "density, Physics."

Probably too bad, Gove added, "for why shouldn't dord mean
density?"

A footnote indicates the excerpt above was based on Philip Gove, "The
History of Dord," American Speech, 29 (1954): 136-8.

ESQUIVALIENCE, defined as "n. the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities,"
is a fabricated word inserted into the 2001 first edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary to protect
the copyright of the electronic edition.
Erin McKean, the editor-in-chief of the second edition of the dictionary, said, "The editors figured, We’re all working
really hard, so let’s put in a word that means ‘working really hard.’ Nothing materialized, so they thought, Let’s do the opposite."
An editor named Christine Lindberg came up with the word.
A phony entry in the 1975 edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia is
LILLIAN VIRGINIA MOUNTWEAZEL, described as
a fountain designer turned photographer who was celebrated for a collection of photographs of rural American mailboxes titled

Flags Up! She was born in Bangs, Ohio, in 1942, and died at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.
[Information from Charles Turner, referring to a 2005 article in the New Yorker]

Some non-existent places are GOBLU and BEATOSU, which
appeared as towns on the 1979-80 Michigan State Highway Commission
map; they actually represented Go Blue! and Beat OSU, and were
deleted from the 1980-81 map [Dickson].

DREAMT is the only common word in English ending in -MT.
Others are the obscure adreamt, redreamt, undreamt, or daydreamt.

EARTHLING is first found in print in 1593.
Other surprisingly old words are
SPACESHIP (1894),
ACID RAIN (1858),
ANTACID (1753),

HAS-BEEN (1606),
HAIRDRESSER (1771),
MOLE (in connection with espionage, 1622, by Sir Francis Bacon),
FUNK (a strong smell, 1623; a state of panic, 1743),
MILKY WAY (ca. 1384, but earlier in Latin),
COCKTAIL (1803),
and

MS. (used instead of Miss or Mrs., 1949).
An earlier use of Ms. is on a 1767 tombstone in Plymouth, Massachusetts:
"HERE LIES INTERRD [sic] THE BODY OF MS. SARAH SPOONER." However, it is considered
a likely mistake by the engraver of the tombstone.
A 2002 New York Times article points out that
John A. Murphy is credited with a 1972 marketing masterstroke with "Lite, a fine Pilsner beer,"
but that the OED shows a use of leoht beor in about the year 1000.
According to a 2005 column by William Safire, the phrase INTELLIGENT DESIGN appears in an 1847 issue of Scientific American, but
it was probably coined in its present sense in Humanism, a 1903 book by Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller:
"It will not be possible to rule out the supposition that the process of evolution may be guided by an intelligent design."
According to Time (July 3, 2006), LUNATIC FRINGE was coined by Theodore Roosevelt in a letter he wrote after losing the 1912 election:
"The various admirable movements in which I have been engaged
have always developed among their numbers a large lunatic fringe."
[Charles Turner contributed to this section]

The longest word consisting of only short letters is
unceremoniousness, with 17 letters.
A sixteen-letter word consisting of only short letters is overnumerousness.
Some fifteen-letter words consisting of only short letters are
overnervousness,
acrimoniousness,
carnivorousness,
ceremoniousness,
unconsciousness,
and
vermivorousness.
Some fourteen-letter words consisting of only short letters are
curvaceousness,
nonconcurrence,
avariciousness,
censoriousness,
mercuriousness,

and
omnivorousness.
Note that most of these words can be lengthened by two letters by making them plural, adding -es.
The OED2 has some other words of equal length but including hyphens; these have been excluded from this list.
[Philip Bennett]

lighttight and lillypilly are the longest words
consisting of only long letters. Some nine-letter words are
flightily, highlight, and hillbilly.

gyp and gyppy (in OSW and OED2) consist only of letters
with descenders.

Some words with only "up" letters are
tikitiki (W2), libidibi (W2),

dikdik, titbit, and tidbit.
OED2 also has the obsolete biddikil and tittifill and the variant spelling hiddill.

[Mike Turniansky, Jim Cook, Stuart Kidd, Rex Gooch, and Philip Bennett contributed to the
letter-size section].

ESCALATOR is one of many words that were originally trademarks
but have become ordinary words found in dictionaries. Some other
words which were originally trademarks (or still are) are
AQUA-LUNG, ASPIRIN, AUTOHARP, BAKELITE, BAND-AID, BREATHALYZER, BVD,
CELLOPHANE, CELLULOID, CORNFLAKES, CUBE STEAK, DACRON, DEEPFREEZE, DICTAPHONE,
DITTO, DRY ICE, DUMPSTER, FORMICA, FRISBEE, GRANOLA, GUNK, HEROIN,
JACUZZI, JEEP, JELL-O, KEROSENE, KLEENEX, LANOLIN, MACE, MIMEOGRAPH, MOXIE,
NOVOCAIN, PABLUM, PHILLIPS SCREW, PING-PONG, PLEXIGLAS, POGO STICK, POPSICLE, PYREX, Q-TIP,
ROLLERBLADE, SCOTCH TAPE, SHEETROCK, STETSON HAT, STYROFOAM, TABLOID,
TARMAC, THERMOS, TRAMPOLINE, VASELINE, VELCRO, WINDBREAKER, YO-YO,
ZIPPER [Charles Turner and others]. In addition NYLON was coined by du Pont, although the term was never trademarked
[Dan Tilque].

ETAOIN SHRDLU is defined in W3 as "a combination of
letters set by running a finger down the first and then the second
left-hand vertical banks of six keys of a Linotype machine to produce
a temporary marking slug not intended to appear in the final
printing." The word comes from the layout of the keys on a Linotype
machine. The letters also correspond exactly to the sequence of most
frequently used letters found in English writing. That is, "e" is the
most frequently occurring letter, followed by "t," etc., according to
one study.

EWE and YOU are pronounced exactly the same, yet share
no letters in common. Other examples:

EYE/I, OX/AUKS, OH/EAU (de cologne),
A/EH, AWE/OR (Australian pronunciation),
AYE/I,
COUGH/KAF (kaf is a variant of kaph),

QUAY/KI (a Polynesian palm),
EYE/AI (three-toed sloth), FEE/PHI (Greek letter),
KEY/CHI (Greek letter),
OZ/AAHS,
CEE/SI,
HAUT/OWE,

WAY/HUE (city in Vietnam),
SHE/XI (a river in China)
[Dan Tilque, Chris Hendricks, Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett, Don Kersey, Dmitri Borgmann, Eric Brahinsky].

FICKLEHEADED and FIDDLEDEEDEE may be the longest words
consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet. Ted
Clarke suggests ILLEFFACEABLE, although he admits this word is not in
dictionaries. CABBAGEHEADED is found in print [Gary Rosenberg].

HIGGLEHAGGLED and GIBBLEGABBLED are
given by Dmitri Borgmann in Charles Bombaugh's Oddities and
Curiosities of Words and Literature, ed. Martin Gardner. The Rec
Puzzle Archives gives HAMAMELIDACEAE.
Allowing proper names, BAECCICIELGEJAKKA (17 letters) is the name of a stream in Norway [Susan Thorpe].
Some shorter words are
ACADEMICAL, ALCHEMICAL, ALKALIFIED, BACKFIELD, BACKFILLED, BEMEDALLED, BLACKBALLED, BLACKJACKED, BLACKMAILED,
BLEACHABLE, DEACIDIFIED, DEADHEADED,
DECALCIFIED, FEEDBACK, FIDDLEBACK, FIDDLEHEAD, FLIMFLAMMED, HIGHBALLED, HIJACKED, IMMEDICABLE,
MACADAMIA, and HIJACKED [Stuart Kidd, Philip C. Bennett].

Some long words consisting of only letters in the second half of the alphabet
are NONSUPPORTS, PUTTYROOTS, POPPYWORTS, SYNSPOROUS, NONTORTUOUS,
SOUPSPOONS, PROSUPPORT, and ZOOSPOROUS [Marc Broering, Stuart Kidd, Philip C. Bennett, Paul Wright].
Allowing proper names, there are TUTTOQQORTOOQ (13 letters, an island in Greenland) and
ROSSOUWSPOORT (13 letters, the name of a pass in South Africa) [Susan Thorpe].

---

A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 2

Last revision: Sept. 2, 2007

---

GINORMOUS (a combination of gigantic and enormous) was picked by visitors to the Merriam-Webster web site as
the favorite word that was not in the dictionary in 2005; it was added to the Collegiate dictionary in 2007.
The word appears in a 1948 British dictionary of military slang.

The three-syllable word HIDEOUS, with the change of a single consonant,
becomes a two-syllable word with no vowel sounds in common: HIDEOUT
[Mark D. Lew].

HIV VIRUS is an obvious redundancy, since the "v" stands for
"virus." Some other common redundancies which include an
abbreviation are ATM MACHINE, SALT TALKS, START TALKS, VIN
NUMBER, PIN NUMBER, AC CURRENT, DC CURRENT, ISBN
NUMBER, DOS OPERATING SYSTEM, ABS BRAKING SYSTEM,
DIMM MODULE (Dynamic Inline Memory Module),
EFT TRANSFER (Electronic Funds Transfer),
EMP PULSE (Electromagnetic Pulse), and
MSDS SHEETS (Material Safety Data Sheet),
DC COMICS (DC = Detective Comics)
[Thomas Larson, Nate Roe, Charles Turner, Ana Perez, and others].

THE EL CAMINO HIGHWAY in California translates to “The the highway highway” [Bill Farrell].
Since iterate means “to repeat,” REITERATE could be considered a redundancy [Bill Farrell].

LCD DISPLAY (Liquid Crystal Display) has been suggested for this category,
but Mark Brader says it is not a redundancy. He writes, "The first 'display' refers to an individual character
(or similar component), the second to the whole array of these. The big
display is made up of little displays."

[The Cyber Stylebook of the San Antonio Express-News states that RIO GRANDE RIVER is a redundancy since Rio means "river."
There are numerous similar place names such as Gobi and Sahara deserts, Fujiyama and Sierra mountains, La Brea Tar Pits, etc.;
however, these are generally not considered redundancies because they involve two languages.]

HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS is the longest word consisting
entirely of alternating vowels and consonants. (For information
on this word, see the long words section.) Other such words are

ALUMINOSILICATES, CYTOMEGALOVIRUSES, DEPOLARIZABILITY,
EPICORACOHUMERALER,
HETEROZYGOSITY,
HEXOSAMINIDASES,
HYPOVITAMINOSISES,
ICULANIBOKOLAS (plural of a cannibal fork mentioned in the March 2003 National Geographic),
PARAMYXOVIRUSES,
PARAROSANILINES, PARASITOLOGICAL, SUPEREROGATORILY, TENOSYNOVITIDES,
TENOSYNOVITISES, UNIMAGINATIVELY, VERISIMILITUDES [Stuart Kidd,
Paul F. Doering, Charles Turner].
An endangered Hawaiian plant, Abutilon eremitopetalum,
and a recently extinct burrowing mammal from Madagascar,
Malagasy bibymalagasy,
alternate vowels and consonants
[Charles Turner, Mark Isaak, "Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature"].
LATERAL ALA NASI, defined as "a soft tissue landmark formed by the
lateral attachment of the ala nasi (the outer flaring
wall of each nostril) with the cheek,"
appears in Principles and Practices of Radiation Therapy

[Charles Turner].

IMMUNOHEMATOLOGIC contains 8 pairs of alternating
vowels and consonants.

Some words containing 7 pairs of alternating vowels and
consonants are: ALUMINOSILICATE, AUTOMANIPULATIVE,
DELIBERATIVENESS, GELATINIZABILITY, HYPEROXYGENIZES, IMAGINATIVENESS,
INERADICABILITY, INOPERATIVENESS, MEGALOPOLITANISM, PHENOMENOLOGICAL,
PHOTOPOLYMERIZATION, PRECIPITINOGENIC, PREFIGURATIVENESS,
REMUNERATIVENESS, SEMIMINERALIZED, UNAPOLOGETICALLY,
UNILATERALIZATION, UNILATERALIZES, VERISIMILITUDINOUS [Nelson H.
F. Beebe].

Craig Kasper says GORAN IVANESEVIC (a top tennis player) may
be the longest name of a relatively famous person that alternates
consonants and vowels.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES is the longest name of a country
consisting of alternating vowels and consonants.

Other place names consisting of alternating vowels and consonants
include
GULEMALAMALALANA Point in Papua New Guinea,

REBUREBUSIWASIWA (a Papuan town),
KAWAKAWAMALAMALA (a Fijian stream),
PROMYSEL IMENI NARIMANOVA (a village in Azerbaijian) [Juozas Rimas],
and
WEROWOCOMOCO (Indian place name on John Smith's map of Virginia) [Charles Turner].

Juozas Rimas reports that Fijian streams NAIVUTUVUTUNIVAKALOLO

and NONDRAISILISILINAYALEWATONGA have even longer sequences of
alternating vowels and consonants (19 and 20) but the sequences
constitute only part of the words.

Some Japanese place names with alternating vowels and consonants
include: KAKINOKIZAKA (district in Meguro, Tokyo),
KASUMIGASEKI (district in Chiyoda, Tokyo), and
TAKADANOBABA (district in Shinjuku, Tokyo). These spellings
use the widely-recognized Hepburn system for the Romanized alphabet
version of Japanese words. In this system, all Japanese ideographic
and phonetic characters can be represented by a "vowel-only" or
"consonant(sound)-vowel" combination [Joseph Hernandez].

The earliest known appearance of the word HELLO in print is in a letter written by Thomas Edison dated August 15, 1877.
In the letter, addressed to T. B. A. David, president of Central District and Printing Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh,
Edison suggested that the word should be used to answer the telephone. HELLO is an alteration of the much older word HOLLO.

HYPoThAlAmICoHYPoPHYSeAlS is the longest word that can be spelled
using chemical symbols. Other such words include NONRePReSeNTaTiONAlISmS,
BrONCHOEsOPHAgOSCOPIEs, ThErMoPHOSPHOReSCeNCe, HYPSIBRaCHYCePHAlISm,
HYPErPHOSPHOReSCeNCe, SUPErCoNdUCTiVITiEs, PARaPrOFeSSiONaLS, and SUPErSOPHISTiCAtE
[Stuart Kidd].
IrReSPONSiBILiTiEs reuses no element�s symbol [Mike Keith].

PrAcTiCaLiTiEs may be the longest word using only two-letter abbreviations,
or PaRaCrOsTiCs if no elements are repeated [Richard Sabey].

HYDROXYZINE (a prescription drug) is the only word in RHUD2, OED2, and W3 containing XYZ.
Allowing scientific names in biology, there is
XYZZORS (a nematode worm) [Stuart Kidd].
XYZAL is a newer prescription drug
[Dennis Miller].

The most commonly used words in spoken English are I, YOU,
THE, and A.

The most commonly used words in written English, according to the
1971 American Heritage Word Frequency Book are: the, of, and,
a, to, in, is, you, that, it, he, for, was, on, are, as, with, his,

they at, be, this, from, I, have, or, by, one, had, not, but, what,
all, were, when, we there, can, an, your, which, their, said, if, do.

The most commonly occurring words in Shakespeare's plays and poetry
(with frequencies) are: the 29854, and 27554, I 23357, to 21075, of
18520, a 15523, you 14264, my 12964, that 11955, in 11842, is 9734,
not 8871, with 8269, s 8160, for 8100, it 8080, me 8059, 7357 his,
7228 be, 7120 he. In Shakespeare, 8598 words (abaissiez, abash,
abatements, abates, abbeys, ..., zo, zodiac, zodiacs, zone,
zwaggered) are used only once [Nelson H. F. Beebe].

The most commonly occurring sound in spoken English is the sound of
a in alone, followed by e as in key,
t as in top, and d as in dip [Stuart Kidd].

The longest word with a horizontal line of symmetry is COCCIDIOCIDE [Paul Wright].
Some other words are: BEDECKED, BOOHOOED, CEBID (a type of
monkey), CHECKBOOK, CHOICE, CODEBOOK, COOKBOOK, DECIDED, DIOXIDE,
DOBCHICK, EXCEEDED, HIDE, HOODOOED, ICEBOX, KEBOBBED, OBOE,
OKEECHOBEE, and OXOBOXO (a small lake in southeastern Connecticut, also a palindrome).
[Dmitri Borgmann, Stuart Kidd]

Some words with a vertical line of symmetry are MOM, WOW, OTTO, MAAM, MA'AM,
TOOT, AHA, AA, AHA, AIA, AMA, AVA, AWA, HAH, HOH, HUH, MAM, MIM, MM,
MUM, OHO, OO, OXO, TAT, TIT, TOT, TUT, UTU, VAV, WAW.

All of the letters of these words have a vertical line of symmetry:
AUTOMATA, AUTOTOMY, HIMATIA, HOITY-TOITY, HOMOTAXIA, MAHATMA,
MAHIMAHI, MAMMATI, MAMMOTH, MATAMATA, MOTIVITY, MOUTH-TO-MOUTH,
MYOMATA, MYXOMATA, OUTWAIT, TATOUAY, TAXIWAY, THATAWAY, TIMOTHY,

TOMATO, TOWAWAY, WITHOUT, YAWATAHAMA (a city in Japan), and
YOUTH.

Upper case BID
is horizontally reflective while lower case bid is vertically reflective [Hugo Brandt Corstius].

SWIMS has 180-degree rotational symmetry. If written in
lower-case cursive, chump comes very close to having 180-degree
rotational symmetry [Mark D. Lew].

These words with 6 or more letters have all letters rotationally
symmetrical: NINONS, ONIONS, SISSOOS, SOZINS, ZOONOSIS,
ZOOZOOS.

All of the letters of these words have both horizontal and
vertical lines of symmetry: HI, OH, IO, OHIO, OHO, and IHI'IHI
(rare Hawaiian fern that now exists only in three populations, two of
which are inside volcanoes) [Bruce D. Wilner, Dan Tilque, Mike
Turniansky].

IFF is a word used in mathematics to mean "if and only if." According to
MWCD11, it can be pronounced three ways: "if and only if," like "if,"
and like "if" but with a prolonged "F." There are 121 conjunctions in
MWCD11; IFF is the only conjunction that is a new word, as it was first seen in print in
1955. Other new conjunctions in MWCD11 are
NEVER MIND (1954),
PLUS (1950),
and
UNLIKE (1949).
The newest prepositions are
OFFSHORE (1965),

ANTI (1953), and
APR�S (1951) [Dan Tilque].

The following words have 75% of their letters the same: IIWI
(a Hawaiian bird), BIBB, FAFF, LALL, LILL, LOLL, LULL, MUMM, SASS, SESS,
SISS, SOSS, SUSS ("Suss out" is British slang for "figure out"),
SYSS, TATT, ZIZZ, ÉPÉE (a fencing sword),

DODD, EEFE, EESE, EETE, ESEE, FEFF, FIFF, FUFF, GEGG, GUGG, LELL, and NONN
[Byron Davidson, Daniel Steinberg, Philip Bennett].

IMPETICOS is an example of a nonce word (a word which
has been found to have been used only once). The word is spoken by
the clown in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. W2 says perhaps it
means "impocket."

INTERCHANGEABILITY contains the letters of the words THREE, EIGHT, NINE,
TEN, THIRTEEN, THIRTY, THIRTY-NINE, EIGHTY, EIGHTY-NINE, NINETY, and NINETY-EIGHT

[Stuart Kidd].

INTESTINES has each of its letters occurring twice. Some other
such words: APPEASES, ARRAIGNING, BERIBERI, BILABIAL, CAUCASUS,
CHOWCHOW, CICADELLIDAE, CONCISIONS, COUSCOUS, ESOPHAGOGRAPHERS, FROUFROU, GENSENGS,
GREEGREE, GUITGUIT, HAPPENCHANCE, HORSESHOER, HOTSHOTS, INACCIDENTATED, JIPIJAPA,

MAHIMAHI, MESOSOME, MILLIEME, MIMETITE, RAPPAREE, REAPPEAR,
SCINTILLESCENT, SHAMMASH, SHANGHAIINGS, SIGNINGS, TAENIODONTIDAE, TEAMMATE, UNSUFFICIENCES,
VETITIVE [Pierre Abbat, Stuart Kidd, Philip C. Bennett, Charles Turner].

The shortest word with six letters appearing at least twice is
METASOMATOSES [Stuart Kidd].

IO (an interjection in Chambers and one of the moons of
Jupiter), AI (the three-toed sloth), EO, OK, and AA
(rough volcanic rock) seem to be the shortest two-syllable words.

IRAQ is one of the very few words ending in Q. Obscure words ending in Q are:

ABQAIQ (a city in Saudi Arabia),
AUYUITTUQ (National Park in Canada),
CINQ (an alternative spelling of "cinque," OED),
FARUQ (former king of Egypt, also spelled "Farouk"),
HALQ AL-WADI (city in Tunisia),
INUPIAQ (an Eskimo people),

IQ,
KANGIQSUALUJJUAQ (an Inuit village in Quebec),
KUUJJUAQ (a Canadian village),
N'ASTALIQ,
NESTALIQ (alternative spelling of "nastalik," OED),
PDQ,
PONTACQ,

QAANAAQ (settlement in Greenland; it's also a palindrome),
QAZAQ (alternative spelling of "Kazakh," OED),
QEQERTARSUAQ (island in Greenland),
QUTTINIRPAAQ (National Park in Canada)
RENCQ (obsolete spelling of "rank," OED),
SADIQ (a city in India),

SAMBUQ (alternative spelling of "sambuk," OED)
SHOQ,
SUQ, ZAQAZIQ (or ZAGAZIG, a city in Egypt),
TALAQ (in Chambers),
TRANQ (in OSPD),
TZADDIQ (in Chambers; can also be spelled TSADDIQ),

UMIAQ (a variant spellling of UMIAK, an Eskimo boat, in W2 and W3),
ZIA-UL-HAQ (a proper name)
[Dave Baker, Phillip Bennett, Eric Brahinsky].

KÄRNTEN (one of the states of Austria) has 8 pairs of alternating
dits and dahs in Morse code
(-.- .-.- .-. -. - . -.) [Pierre Abbat].
A Finnish word for "focusing" has a 9 pairs of 18 alternating dits and dahs: TARKENTAEN
(- .- .-. -.- . -. - .- . -.) [Pertti Malo].

A Finnish tongue twister for "a water devil hissed in the elevator" has 56 dits in a row
in Morse code. It has a total of 60 dits and 3 dahs which is the greatest ratio (20:1) known in any mix.
VESIHIISI SIHISI HISSISSÄ
(...- . ... .. .... .. .. ... .. ... .. .... .. ... .. .... .. ... ... .. ... ... .-.-)
[Pertti Malo, Mark Brader].

MOTMOT (a tropical American bird) and TOM-TOM (ignoring the hyphen) contain only dahs in Morse code
(-- --- - -- --- -)
and
(- --- -- - --- --)
[Chris Cole, Byron Davidson].

SHEESHES (plural of SHEESH) may be the longest word containing
only dits in Morse code
(... .... . . ... .... . ...) [Byron Davidson].

In English, ignoring spaces, the longest palindrome in Morse code is INTRANSIGENCE
(.. -. - .-. .- -. ... .. --. . -. -.-. .) [Chris Cole].
If spaces are not ignored, the longest word is
FOOTSTOOL

(..-. --- --- - ... - --- --- .-..)
[Andrew Dart].
The Finnish word for "stereo mapping" is even longer with 33 characters:
STEREOKARTOITUS
(... - . .-. . --- -.- .- .-. - --- .. - ..- ...) [Pertti Malo].

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 3

Last revision: Feb. 10, 2007

---

MISCELLANY 3

MASSACRING is pronounced with a vowel that is not represented
in its spelling. Some other such words are HAMTRAMCK,
EDINBURGH, RHYTHM, NTH, CHASM, SARCASM, DIRNDL, WORLD, VRBAITE (a
mineral named for Karel Vrba, although R can serve as a vowel in Czech),
GRRL and the alternate spelling GRRRL, which are in the Macquarie Dictionary,
contractions (such as DIDN'T), and many other words ending in
-ASM, -ISM, and -ITHM. [Mark Brader and others]

In 2003, in an open letter to Merriam-Webster, McDonald's CEO Jim Cantalupo complained that
the MWCD11 entry McJob
is "an inaccurate description of restaurant employment" and "a slap in the face to the 12 million men and women" who work in the restaurant industry.
A McDonald's spokesman also mentioned that the word
closely resembles McJobs, a trademark which
refers to the company's training program for mentally and physically challenged people.
In MWCD11 McJobs is dated 1986 and is defined as
"a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement."

MHO is a unit of electrical conductance. Since conductance
is the reciprocal of resistance, which is measured in ohms, MHO is
OHM spelled backwards. The only other word in MWCD10 the origin of
which is a backwards spelling is YOB, now more commonly
spelled yobbo, which is the backwards spelling of boy.

However, Chambers has two other electrical units formed by backwards
spellings: DARAF and YRNEH. In mathematics ATLED
is a rare term for the upside-down capital delta (although DEL and
NABLA are more frequently used) and the reciprocal of slope is
sometimes called EPOLS. Barry Harridge, consulting Chambers,
says, "A close relative is ELLAGIC (pertaining to gall-nuts, applied
to a particular acid). The coiners of the word started with the
French word for gall (galle) and spelt it backwards. The laxative
SERUTAN was named by spelling natures backwards.
The recording SERUTAN YOB was a send-up of a popular Nat King Cole song Nature Boy.

Actor Howard KEEL was born Harold Clifford LEEK.

MONDAY is the only day of the week that has an anagram,
DYNAMO [Stuart Kidd].
The only months that have anagrams are MARCH, APRIL,
and MAY. The anagrams are CHARM, RIPAL, and

YAM [Ian Eiloart].

MUZZ would, according to Paul Dickson, be the last word in the
Random House Dictionary if all the words in the dictionary
were spelled backwards. However, it would seem that the last word in
this dictionary, ZZZ, would remain last.

OF is apparently the only commonly used word in which F is pronounced like a V.
The only other words with this property
are HEREOF, THEREOF and WHEREOF

[Mark D. Lew].

President Woodrow Wilson used the spelling OKEH rather than OK.
He preferred this spelling, believing (incorrectly) that the origin of the word
is a Choctaw word meaning "it is so."

The shortest -ology (study of) word is OOLOGY (the study of
eggs). Charles Turner believes the longest -ology word is
OPHTHALMOOTORHINOLARYNGOLOGY (the branch of medicine
which formerly combined the treatment of eye, ear, nose, and
throat). He reports the word can be found in old medical textbooks
and journals.

It is said that no word rhymes with ORANGE. There is a musical
recording Rhymes With Orange by Mario Grigorov. There is a
comic strip with the same name by Hillary Price. Witchiepoo sang
There Ain't No Rhyme for Oranges on H. R. Pufnstuf.
Glenn Anderson reports a Canadian band called Rhymes With Orange had
two hit recordings, Marvin and Toy Trains.

However, BLORENGE (a 1,833 ft. hill near Abergavenny, Wales)
is given in O. V. Michaelsen's book Words At Play.
SPORANGE looks as if it rhymes, but the word, which is short
for sporangium, is pronounced spuh-RANJ.

---

Update 2010-05-23

"Sporange" was a blunder on my part, and I've corrected that embarrassing error--unfortunately, the mistake is stamped in stone. I posted my revisions on those tough rhymes at the beginning of my page on limericks. Excluded from those verses are my comments on politics and religion.
I've since written three manuscripts, but seeking publishers would distract me from writing.

My best,

Ove (O.V.)
_

http://www.rhymestorming.webs.com/

http://www.anagramgenius.com/agasearch.phtml?query=michaelse...

---

The examples above meet the requirement that the last two syllables
rhyme with ORANGE, since the final sylllable is unstressed. If we
require only that the final syllable of the word match, then there
are many other candidates for words which rhyme with orange. For
example, Ng Boon Leong says that as English is pronounced in
Singapore, RANGE, STONEHENGE, and DERANGE all rhyme with ORANGE.
Bruce Salvisberg says the French given name SOLANGE rhymes
with orange. Bruce Todd points out that the final syllable of
CITRANGE is pronounced identically with the final syllable of
ORANGE, and W3 shows an alternate pronunciation of SYRINGE which is
also identical in the last syllable. Ian Eiloart provides BINGE,
CRINGE, HINGE, M*NGE, IMPINGE, SINGE, TINGE, and WHINGE,
and he provides this little poem:

Ted Hughes would constantly whinge,
"There's no rhyme I think for orange"
But wait, we misheard,
For these were his words,
"There's no wine to drink for a binge"

Some other words difficult to rhyme are MONTH, SILVER, WASP, and
PURPLE. The rec.puzzles archive has (n + 1)th to rhyme with MONTH,
and words such as SEVENTH, ELEVENTH, and THOUSANDTH could be
considered rhymes. Ted Clarke provides CHILVER (British
dialect for "ewe lamb" or "ewe mutton" and a surname) and

GRUNTH (an alternate spelling of GRANTH) which rhymes with
MONTH in one of its pronunciations. HIRPLE is a British word
meaning "walk lamely" or "hobble." CURPLE is a Scottish term in W3 [Craig Lancaster]. HERPAL means "related to
herpes" and is a Hindu name. WILVER is a given name; the
best-known Wilver is baseball player Wilver "Willie" Stargell.

It is claimed that -OUGH can be pronounced 9 different ways in
the following sentence:

A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman
strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a

slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.

However, David Olsen says that slough does not provide a unique
pronunciation for -ough, but that HOUGH (pronounced hock) is a
Scottish word, meaning the ankle joint of a horse, cow, or foul, or to
hamstring, or it is an obsolete British word meaning to clear the
throat. Olsen says that in order for the sentence to have 9 different
ways of pronouncing -ough, it could be rewritten as:

A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman
strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he
coughed, houghed, and hiccoughed.

[Jim Spice writes that HOUGH (pronounced HOCK) is "alive and well in
northeastern Wisconsin, even in its original meaning. To HOUGH is to snort
mucus from your throat into your mouth in preparation for spitting."
R. E. Davies writes,
"This word also well known in Ontario, Canada, where
the phrase 'hock a loogie' is alive and well. Most Ontarians would
understand this phrase. As to the word 'loogie,' it also sounds like a good Scottish word,
which is believed to mean 'that which one houghs.' I've never actually seen this
particular phrase written down, but I'm sure school children in Ontario would not be
surprised to find out that 'hock a loogie' should actually be spelled 'hough
a loughie.'"]

Ted Clarke says there are 10 pronunciations for OUGH. He adds
LOUGH, the Irish form of loch. But James A. Landau reports that
the YOUGHIOGHENY River in Pennsylvania (a tributary of the
Monongahela) is pronounced "YUCK-ih-gain-ee."

Stuart Kidd provides the following, with 10 pronunciations:

Though the cough, hough and hiccough so unsought
would plough me through,
Enough that I o'er life's dark lough my
thorough course pursue.

Kidd adds: "Note here that cough, hough and hiccough

are somewhat onomatopoeic and that would gives yet another ou
sound as well."

The alphabetical sequence -rstu- is contained in
OVERSTUFF, OVERSTUDIOUS, OVERSTUDY, OVERSTUDIED, OVERSTUDIES, OVERSTUNK, UNDERSTUFF, UNDERSTUMBLE,
SUPERSTUD, OVERSTUMBLE, SUPERSTUFF, UNDERSTUDY, and
BIERSTUBE (a type of German tavern) [Paul Wright].
In additon, the OED2 has INTERSTURB, which is shown as an erroneous form of interturb

[Philip C. Bennett].

The only other four-letter alphabetical sequence
found in English is -mnop-, which is found in
CREMNOPHOBIA,
GYMNOPAEDES,
GYMNOPAEDIC,
GYMNOPHIONA,
GYMNOPHOBIA,
GYMNOPHTHALMATA,
GYMNOPLAST,
LIMNOPHIL,
LIMNOPHILE,
LIMNOPHILID,
LIMNOPHILIDAE,
LIMNOPHILOUS,
LIMNOPHORA,
LIMNOPHORID,
LIMNOPITHECUS,
LIMNOPLANKTON,
LIMNOPLANKTONIC,
PRUMNOPITYS,
SEMNOPITHECINAE,
SEMNOPITHECINE,
SEMNOPITHECUS,
SEMNOPITHEQUE,
SOMNOPATHIST,
SOMNOPATHY,
THAMNOPHILE,
THAMNOPHILINAE,
THAMNOPHILINE,
THAMNOPHILUS, and
THAMNOPHIS
[Paul Wright, Charles Turner].

If we allow spaces and hyphens there are also
FILM NOIR and STAR-STUDDED.

If we allow the alphabet to carry on round in a continuous loop,
there is -yzab- in ANALYZABLE
[Paul Wright].

Words consisting only of consecutive letters, none allowed to repeat, are
RUST, STRUV, FEIGH (to clean, OED),
HEFIG (heavy, Chambers), and
FIGHED (signed, OED).
Words consisting only of consecutive letters, allowing repeating letters, are

HIJIKI (a type of seaweed),
POMPON, POMPOON (variant of POMPOM, OED)
BACABA, DEEDEED (damned),
FEIGHED (cleaned, OED),
OMNOPON (an opiate, OED),
TUSSURS (oriental silk moths), and

TUTTUTS. If hyphens are allowed, HIGH-FED and FACE-BEDDED
[Stuart Kidd, Rudy Wang].

According to Stuart Kidd, AFGHANISTAN, KIRGHISTAN, and TUVALU

are the only countries with three consecutive letters in their names. However,
David Kendall points out that the official spelling of the second country is
KYRGYZSTAN.

The Czech expression O PRSTU (about a finger) contains
letters in alphabetical sequence, as Q is not used in Czech
[Miroslav Sedivy].

The Danish word FORSTUVNING (distortion) contains the sequence
-rstuv- [Philip Bennett].

OXYOPIA (unusual acuteness of vision), OOGONIA, and
OCEANIA cram five syllables into only seven letters [Stuart
Kidd]. OIDIA (plural of OIDIUM) has four syllables with only
five letters [Craig Rowland]. Allowing scientific names in biology,
IOUEA (a genus of Cretaceous fossil sponges) has four
syllables in five letters [Susan Thorpe in Word Ways). Barry
Harridge points out that IFF (described elsewhere on this
page) yields five syllables with only three letters, in one of its
pronunciations. AOTEAROA, the Maori name for New Zealand
(meaning The Land of the Long White Cloud), has six syllables in its
eight letters [Stuart Kidd].

PARADIGM was the word most frequently looked up in 1998 in the
Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary. Some other words frequently looked up, besides obscene words, were
UBIQUITOUS, ESOTERIC, OXYMORON, SERENDIPITY, HUBRIS, OBSEQUIOUS, and
ECLECTIC.
At the end of 2000, a frequently looked up word was
CHAD. (Its modern meaning is in the MWCD10, but not the OED2.)

In 2001, the ten most frequently looked up words in the Cambridge Dictionaries Online
(out of almost 15 million searches) were

SERENDIPITY, IDIOM, PARADIGM, UBIQUITOUS, DICTIONARY, PRAGMATIC, EFFECT, GRY, JINGOISM, and FOIBLE.
In the first half of 2002, SERENDIPITY remained in first place, although in October 2002 the
most frequently looked up word was SNIPER.

The most frequently looked up words at the Merriam-Webster web site in 2004 were
BLOG, INCUMBENT, ELECTORAL, INSURGENT,
HURRICANE, CICADA, PELOTON, PARTISAN,
SOVEREIGNTY, and DEFENESTRATION.

The most frequently looked up words at the Merriam-Webster web site in 2005 were
INTEGRITY, REFUGEE, CONTEMPT, FILIBUSTER, INSIPID, TSUNAMI, PANDEMIC, CONCLAVE, LEVEE, and INEPT.

The most frequently looked up article in the World Book
Encyclopedia is said to be SNAKE.

PIERRE, the capital of South Dakota, is the only state capital
name that shares no letters with the name of its state [Mark D. Lew].

PIKES PEAK is spelled without an apostrophe by law. The
Colorado legislature established the correct spelling in 1978. There
are other cases in which spelling or pronunciation is established by
law. The voters of Mullens, West Virginia, voted to retain the
spelling, rather than switch to "Mullins," which is how the person
for whom the town is named spelled his name. According to Willis
Johnson, the Louisiana legislature enacted a law specifying that
"crawfish" should not be spelled with a "y." Jim Lehmann
reports that in Joliet, Illinois, it is illegal to pronounce the name
of the town in any way other than with a long "o" on the first
syllable. (According to MWCD10, outsiders often pronounce the
first syllable with a broad "a." The primary stress is on the final syllable.)

A 1961 UPI newspaper article reported, “Residents of Guttenberg, named for Johann Gutenberg,
inventor of movable type, have voted to uphold a typographical error. Voters Tuesday defeated, 208-166,
a move to delete the extra ‘T’ inserted accidentally by a draftsman
in the original town plan.”

PINK has a separate entry for each of eight completely different etymologies
in Chambers. (Briefly they are a ship, to serrate, light red, yellow pigment, to
wink, small, a minnow, to knock in a car�s engine.)

POLISH is pronounced two ways, depending on whether or not the
first letter is capitalized. Some other such words:
Some more:
AMEND [Cartoonist],
ARES,
ASKEW,
AUGUST,
BAD,
BEGIN,
BREATHED [creator of Bloom County and Outland],

BUND,
CLEMENT [street in San Francisco],
COLON,
CONCORD [New Hampshire capital],
DEGAS,
ESPY [word player],
EWE,
FOREST [town in Belgium],
FORGET [tennis player],
GUY [Flemish ruler],

HERB,
ILL [river in Austria],
JOB,
JUBILATE,
JUNKER,
KIN [Manchu ancestors],
LEVY,
LIMA,
MALE,
MANES,
MARE [the dark "seas" on the moon],
MILLET [French painter],
MOBILE,
MOLE [Sudanese people],
MUSTER [tennis player],

NATAL,
NESTLE [beverage maker],
NICE,
OUR [river in Belgium],
PLACER,
QUICHE [department in Guatemala],
RAINIER,
RAVEL,
READING,
SAID,
SCONE [town in UK and Australia],
SEAT [make of Spanish car],
SLOUGH [city west of London (not far from Reading)],

TANG [Chinese dynasty],
TANGIER,
VITAL [Palestinian author],
XI [river in China],
WORMS,
ZEMI [Naga people].
MAGDALEN uncapitalized means "a repentant
prostitute"; capitalized, it is a college in Oxford and sounds like
"maudlin." EMBARRASS capitalized is a river in Eastern
Illinois and a city and a river in Minnesota
pronounced (aum-bro); it is also spelled EMBARRAS [Ted
Clarke, Bruce D. Wilner, Dan Tilque, John Ramsden, David Giltinan, Charles Turner,
Noam Bergman, Chris Cole, Richard Lederer, Rudy Wang].

PSI and SAI make up a pair of homophones, both of which
refer to pitchfork-shaped objects. The first is Greek and refers to a
letter; the second is Japanese and refers to a ninja weapon. (In
Greek, PSI is pronounced "psee," but in English-language dictionaries
it is pronounced "sai.")

Q is the only letter that does not occur in the names of the
states of the U. S.

RAISE/RAZE are homophones with approximately opposite
meanings. Others are RECKLESS/WRECKLESS, AURAL/ORAL,
PETALLESS/PETALOUS, QUEEN/QUEAN

[Bruce D. Wilner].

RESIGN has opposite meanings but is pronounced differently
in each case ("to quit" and "to sign again") [Robert S. Seidenwurm].

In 1934 Variety printed perhaps its most famous headline of
all time, STICKS NIX HICK PIX, meaning "rural communities
reject movies about rural personae."
In 1984 David Burdett wrote a book whose title was the
variation HIX NIX STIX PIX.

On May 31, 2000, the New York
Daily News wrote on page 1 HICKS NIX KNICKS TIX with
the sub-headline "Pacers freeze New York fans out of courtside seats
at Indy." The headline on page 5 read HICKS' KNICKS TIX TRICK
[James A. Landau, Mark Brader].

Stephen Morris writes that French for walkie-talkie is talkie-walkie.

The reason we say "razzle-dazzle" rather than "dazzle-razzle"
is because "The word beginning with the less obstruent consonant
always comes before the word beginning with the more obstruent
consonant." This is according to Steven Pinker in The Language of
Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language.

Rot13 is a simple way to encrypt texts, by rotating the alphabet 13
letters. A becomes N, B becomes O, etc. Rot13 is mainly used to
hide text from casual reading. The longest words which become
other words by rot13 are NOWHERE/ABJURER
and CHECHEN/PURPURA.
Other interesting words are
TANG/GNAT and
VEX/IRK (which are synonyms) [Pierre Abbat, Stuart Kidd].

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 4

Last revision: Nov. 21, 2007

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MISCELLANY 4

No President of the United States has had a last name starting with S, even though
it is the most common last name initial in the United States.

SCRAUNCHED (10 letters) and SCROONCHED may be the longest monosyllabic words in W3.
The OED2 has these ten-letter words:
STRENGTHED,
STREYNGTHE,
SCHMALTZED,
STREIGHTES,
STREINGHTS, and

STREITCHED.
The American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed., 2000) has
SCROOTCHED as an alternative spelling for scrooched [Philip Bennett, Stuart Kidd].

Some nine-letter monosyllabic words are
CRAUNCHED, SCHLEPPED, SCHLUMPED, SCHMEERED, SCHMOOZED, SCRAICHED,
SCRAIGHED, SCRATCHED, SCREECHED, SCROOCHED, SCROUNGED, SCRUNCHED,
SKREECHED, SKREIGHED, SPLOTCHED, SQUELCHED, SQUINCHED, SQUOOSHED,
STAUNCHED, STRAIGHTS, STRENGTHS, STRETCHED, SCRANCHED, SCRAUGHED,
SCRINCHED, SCRITCHED, SPLATCHED, SQUATCHED, SQUENCHED, FRAUNCHED, STRAYNGTH,
GRAUNCHED, THRUTCHED, SCHWARMED, and

SQUITCHED
[Philip Bennett, Stuart Kidd].

In addition, MWCD10 shows a one-syllable pronunciation of SQUIRREL, so presumably
the 11-letter SQUIRRELLED could be pronounced as one syllable.
Craig Rowland writes,
"All dictionaries designate this word to be of two syllables, but
frankly I don't know any Canadian who says it as any way but one."

SET is the word with the longest entry in the OED2.
In the OED2, the verb set has over 430 senses consisting
of approximately 60,000 words. In W3, the longest entry is TAKE.

The longest entry in RHUD2 is RUN, with 178 definitions
[Dan Tilque].

SHANGHAI could be the only verb that is derived from the name of
a city [James Landau].

Dan Tilque has compiled a list of what he calls "shape words,"
terms in English that are composed of a
single letter and a word (or two), where the letter describes
the shape of the object. He attempts to show one word for each
letter of the alphabet, but several letters are missing. His list:
A-frame,
C-clamp,
D ring,
f-hole, F clamp,
G clamp,
H hinge,
I beam,
J-bar lift,
K truss, K-turn,
L square,
M roof,
O-ring,
P trap,
S curve,
T-shirt, T-intersection, T-bone, T-square,
U-turn,
V neck,
W-engine,
X truss,
Y theodolite,
and
Z bar. [Mark Brader and Phil Jacknis added to Dan's list.]

SUBBOOKKEEPER is the only word found in an English language dictionary with four pairs of double
letters in a row. This word is in W2, but is not in W3 or OED2.
WOOLLOOMMOOLOO, according to the Australian Encyclopedia
and various editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica,
is the original spelling of Woolloomooloo, a suburb and bay in Sydney, Australia [Susan Thorpe]

Bob Erndt suggests there ought to be someone who has a
raccoon that has a nook that needs cleaning, namely a
RACCOONNOOKKEEPER. And from Bo Parker: At a dam, there is a
flooddoor. The controls for the flooddoor are in the flooddoorroom.
Let's say the the boss at the dam calls a meeting in the
flooddoorroom. The people who go to this meeting are
FLOODDOORROOMMEETINGGOERS. And James Lehmann suggests: In the
flooddoorroom, there is a book, which explains how to use the
controls for the flooddoor, a FLOODDOORROOMBOOK, in which all
four double-O's are pronounced differently.
According to Charles Hess,
Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned
FLOODDOORROOMMOONLIGHTERS, RACCOONNOOKKEEPER, and FLOODDOORROOMMASTER.

Dwight Ripley notes that in Finnish such words are almost commonplace. As examples, he cites
LAPPEELLAAN (flat),
LIIKKEESSÄ (in motion; in a shop), and
PUUTTEELLINEN (defective).

HUBBUBBUBBOO (a confused crying or yelling, OED) is the shortest
word with four pairs sets of double letters, although the OED also shows

PEEKEENEENEE as an English phonetic spelling in a citation for the word PICCANINNY
[Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett].

The shortest words with three double letters are
KEELLESS, ASSESSEE, ALLOTTEE, APPELLEE,
CALLALLOO, FEELLESS, HEELLESS, KEENNESS, SOONNESS, TOOLLESS, UBBUBBOO and FEEOFFEE.
EELLESS has been suggested but does not seem to be in any dictionary [Pierre Abbat, Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett].

According to Philip Bennett, the only words in the OED2 with three sets of consecutive double letters are
BOOK-KEEPER, DEER-REEVE, FEED-DOOR, GOOD-DEED, HEEL-LOOP, HOOF-FOOTED, HOOT-TOOT, KEEK-KEEK, SOONNEE, TOOT-TOOT, VENEER-ROOM,
and WOOD-DEER.

COOEE is the shortest word with two double letters [Pierre
Abbat].

AA (a type of lava) and OO (a Hawaiian bird or a variant of OOH) are
the shortest words with one double letter [Pierre Abbat, Mark Brader].

GOOD DEED DOTTY, the name of an old comic strip, has four double letters in a
row [Peter Gordon].

SYZYGY and ZYZZYVA, when written in cursive, have five
letters in a row which descend below the line. SYZYGY is also the
shortest word with three Y's.

TARAMASALATA (a type of Greek salad) and GALATASARAY

(name of a Turkish football club) both have an A for every other
letter. OCONOMOWOC (a town in Wisconsin) has an O for every
other letter. The term International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection contains the letter string
"IONONNONIONI," which consists of 12 consecutive letters with only three distinct.
The Commission, incidentally, is located in OBERSCHLEISSHEIM, Germany; that word contains five consecutive consonants [Eric Brahinsky].

TAXI is spelled the same way in eleven languages, according to
Dixon: English, French, German, Swedish, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian,
Dutch, Czech, Slovak, and Portuguese. Jeff Volgyi reports it is also spelled the
same way in Hungarian.
G. Strauss reports it is also spelled the same way in Romanian.
However, Emerson Werneck says that in
Portuguese, taxi is actually spelled táxi.

Emerson points out that SAUNA is spelled the same way in nine
languages: Finnish, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French,
German, Dutch, and Danish. Readers of this page have
reported it is also spelled the same way in Lithuanian,
Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, and Norwegian (although in Norwegian the
word badstue is more commonly used). In Swedish, bastu,
a short form of badstuga meaning (approximately) "bathing-hut,"
is more commonly used.
[Juozas Rimas, Nikola Petrovic,
Gabriel Ionita, Thor-Rune Fiskum,
Andreas Engström].

Phil Smith writes, "Regarding the fact that 'sauna' is spelt the same in nine languages, in Japanese the
word uses the katakana characters (used for words that have come into the language from other countries)
and is spelt 'sa-u-na' too. This is unusual for katakana words, as they rarely match the original spelling,
such as 'kamera', 'pasokon' (personal computer), 'apaato' (apartment) and 'sabiro' (suit, originating from the
road name Savile Row in London, where tailors used to work)."

Dan Tilque has found that VETO is the same in at least 24
languages: Albanian, Azerbaijani, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English,
Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian,
Lithuanian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, SerboCroatian,
Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. In Hungarian it is
spelled the same except for a diacritic. In Basque and Tagalog
it's spelled 'beto' and in Polish it's 'weto'.

In a 1982 Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson, a lecturer pointed to a picture of
the tail spikes of a Stegosaurus and explained to the class of cavemen, “Now this end
is called the thagomizer ... after the late Thag Simmons.”
According to a 2006 article in New Scientist, paleontologists have
adopted the name THAGOMIZER.

Discover magazine reported in June 2007,
“Ken Carpenter, a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, was the first
to use the term professionally, quipping, ‘And now, on to the thagomizer,’
when describing a specimen with broken tail spikes at a 1993 meeting.”
[Charles Turner]

THERBLIG, a unit of workplace efficiency, is a word created by
spelling approximately backwards the last name of engineer Frank B.
Gilbreth and psychologist Lillian Gilbreth. THERBLIG is not in
MWCD10; the three words in MWCD10 that were created as anagrams are
SPANDEX (for "expands"), SIDEBURNS (for "burnsides"),
and ITACONIC ACID (for "aconitic acid," from "aconite.")
MWCD11 adds COTININE, which it says is probably an anagram of "nicotine"
[Ben Zimmer].
Placenames formed by reversing the name of the state or country in
which they are located are ADANAC (a village in western
Saskatchewan, Canada), ADAVEN (in Nevada), and SAXET

(in Texas).

THEREIN is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words
spelled with consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there,
ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein [Stuart Kidd].
THITHERWARDS contains 23: thitherward, thither, hi, hit,
hithe, hither, hitherward, hitherwards, I, it, ither, the, he, her,
er, wa, war, ward, wards, a, ar, ard and ards [álainn cruic].
SHADES contains hades, shade; ades, hade, shad; des, ade, had,
sha; es, de, ad, ha, sh; S, E, D, A, H, all of which are in W3.
["Word Torture," by Ralph Beaman, Word Ways.]

The Indian cities TIRUCHCHITTRAMBALAM and
TIRUCHCHIRAPPALLI both have the -chch- sequence, which this page previously described as "rare." However,
many other words with -chch- have been reported, as follows:
ARCHCHRONICLER, MLECHCHHA (W3, a person in India who does not practise Hinduism),
ARCHCHAMBERLAIN, ARCHCHANCELLOR, ARCHCHANTER, ARCHCHEMIC, KACHCHAN,
CHUCHCHI (a rare mushroom Morchella conica),
BOCHCHARE, BUCHCH, RACHCH, SLUCHCHED,
ENTACHCH, GROCHCHE, GRYCHCHE, KUCHCHA, PATCHCHE, RECHCHE, RUCHCHE, TECHCHE,

ACHCHA (a S. Asian expression meaning "is that so"),
and VECHCHE
[Juozas Rimas, Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett, Paul Wright].

TROLLIED seems to be the longest word in W3 with the letters
in reverse alphabetical order. There are also SPOON-FEED and
SPOON-FED (although these words are usually spelled with
hyphens), SNIFFED, SPIFFED, SPOOFED, SPOOKED, SPOOLED,
SPOONED, SPOOMED, SNIGGED, TROLLED, TROOLIE (a palm tree),

and TSONECA (a Patagonian language).

SPONGED and WRONGED are the longest such
words if repeated letters are not allowed [Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett].

UNCOPYRIGHTABLE (15 letters) is the longest word in common use
with no letter appearing more than once. Other such words:
SUBDERMATOGLYPHIC (17; not found in any dictionary, but
occurring in an article in Annals of Dermatology),
MISCONJUGATEDLY (15), DERMATOGLYPHICS (15; Stedman's
Electronic Medical Dictionary), AMBIDEXTROUSLY (14),

TROUBLEMAKINGS (14), SCHIZOTRYPANUM (14; Stedman's
Electronic Medical Dictionary), VESICULOGRAPHY (14; Stedman's
Electronic Medical Dictionary), UNDISCOVERABLY (14),
BENZHYDROXAMIC (14), HYDROMAGNETICS (14),

HYDROPNEUMATIC (14), PSEUDOMYTHICAL (14),
SULPHOGERMANIC (14),
BRACHYPOLEMIUS (14, a genus of beetle), and
MACROXYLETINUS (14, a genus of beetle). [Charles Turner]

Placenames with no repeating letters include
BRICKLEHAMPTON (Britain),
GUMPOLDSKIRCHEN (Austria),
MALITZSCHKENDORF (Germany),
BRIDGEHAMPTON (NY),
MADRITSCHENGUPF (Austria),
STRICHWANDKOGEL (Austria),

MORICHELYPUSZTA (Hungary),
FJORDHUNGZKVISL (Iceland),
HONDEBLAFSPRUIT (South Africa),
DJUPBACKSHOLMEN (Sweden),
HOGLYCKSFJARDEN (Sweden),
and
SOUTH CAMBRIDGE (NY).
Some of the long place names are from Word Ways or were contributed by Stuart Kidd.

Stuart Kidd says that MELVIN SCHWARTZKOPF of Illinois
and
DEBORAH GLUPCZYNSKI, a doctor in Massachusetts, have
the longest names with no letter repeated. Andrew Davis reports that he lives in
BUCKFASTLEIGH (in Devon, England), which has 13 letters and no letter
repeating. JOHN TYLER is the only full name of a president of the United States which has no letter repeating.

UNDERFUND and UNDERGROUND are the only words in MWCD10 which start and
end with 'UND.'
The OED2 has UNDERGROUND and UNDERSOUND.
However, UNDERWOUND yields many hits
on Internet search engines [Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett].

UNPROSPEROUSNESS is the longest word in which no letter occurs
only once.

USHER contains four personal pronouns (us, she, he, her).
USHERS has HERS as well, for a total of five personal pronouns
[Stuart Kidd].

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION is the longest word that does
not contain an E [Steven Van Gemert]. Another long word with this property is
UVULOPALATOPHARYNGOPLASTY.

E is the most frequently occurring letter in English
(and French, Spanish, and German). Mark Smith reports the word refers
to a surgical procedure for (most commonly) men with advanced sleep
apnea, wherein the breathing passage is opened by removing the uvula,
shortening the palate and removing the tonsils. Other long words
lacking an E are HUMUHUMUNUKUNUKUAPUAAS, PHONOCARDIOGRAPHICALLY,
PRORHIPIDOGLOSSOMORPHA, SUPRADIAPHRAGMATICALLY, and
MACRACANTHORHYNCHIASIS.

WACO and WARE are the only U. S. radio station call
letters that exactly spelled the cities in which they were located
(Waco, Texas, and Ware, Massachusetts). KING FM and TV
station is in King County, Washington, and KERN is located in Kern County, California. WHT in
Deerfield, Illinois, and WGHF in New York were apparently the
only radio call letters that exactly matched the owners'
initials (Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson and William G. H.
Finch). Television station WRGB in Schenectady was named for
GE executive Walter R. G. Baker.

Many suffixes in English change masculine words into feminine.
According to Stuart Kidd, only one works in reverse, converting a feminine noun to masculine:
WIDOW/WIDOWER. The only case where a prefix, not a suffix, feminizes
a masculine term is with the female for REP (a disreputable man): a DEMIREP.

There is only one word beginning with X in Noah Webster's first
dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language

(1806). The word is XEBEC.

In all of Shakespeare's plays and poetry, excluding Roman numerals,
only one word begins with X. The word is XANTHIPPE (the wife
of Socrates). It is found in The Taming of the Shrew [Nelson
H. F. Beebe].

Jefferson B. Morris points out that www as an abbreviation for
"World Wide Web" has 9 spoken syllables, whereas the term being
abbreviated has only 3 or 4 spoken syllables. A similar occurrence
is WWII for "World War II."

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 5

Last revision: Jan. 4, 2007

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PALINDROMES

This section is limited to single-word palindromes only. I
appreciate contributions to this page, but I am not including
sentences or phrases which are palindromes, since there are other
websites which list large numbers of them. Principal contributors
to this section are Dan Tilque, Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett, and Charles Turner.

TATTARRATTAT is the longest palindrome in the OED2, which
calls it a nonce word. The OED2 shows a single use in 1922 by James
Joyce in Ulysses: "I knew his tattarrattat at the door."

KINNIKINNIK is the longest palindrome in W3. The OED2 shows
these variant spellings: kinnikinnic, kinnikinnik, killegenico,
kanickanick, kanikanik, killickinnick, kin(n)ikin(n)ick, -kineck,
-kennic, kinnakinnec. Audubon L. Bakewell IV reports the word is
usually spelled kinnikinnick. The OED2 defines the term as "a
mixture used by North American Indians as a substitute for tobacco,
or for mixing with it..." or "any of the various plants used for
this, as the Silky Cornel, Cornus sericea, Red-osier Dogwood, Cornus
stolonifera, and esp. Bearberry, Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi...." The
word is derived from an Algonquin word meaning "mixture."

Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Frederick Webb Hodge, 1907 & 1965
gives the variant spelling KINNIK-KINNIK, which is an even longer palindrome,
and a "repeater" if the hyphen is ignored [Stuart Kidd].

DETARTRATED is listed by Guinness, where it is
described as "a contrived chemical term." However, the word appears
in several Internet pages on Concord grape juice and even once or
twice on apple juice, including the page
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/hort/faculty/pool/herbbarber/h....
htm which has this paragraph:

Concord contains potassium salts commonly called
tartrates that won't filter or centrifuge out. Must be allowed to
settle out by gravity - minimum of 6 weeks, before it's detartrated
and ready to use. Otherwise will have sediment in the bottom of the
bottle of juice and the jelly will be a little grainy.

Detartrated is said to have been coined by Dmitri Borgmann.

DETANNATED appears in a work on plant extracts published in
1892. It shows two detannated concoctions, detannated elixir of
calisaya bark and detannated elixir of cinchona. The text can be
found at http://chili.rt66.com/hrbmoore/ManualsOther/ElixForm.txt
According to the Palindromicon, "detannated tincture of cinchona"
appears in the 8th revision of the Pharmacopoeia of the U. S.

The longest palindromic taxons are
AFGOIOGFA (a genus of hymenopterans),
AIDEMEDIA (a genus of Hawaiian finch),
and

ALLENELLA (a species name for a moth, Oecophoridae
Bibarrambla allenella as well as a type of mollusk and a hymenopteran [Susan Thorpe, Charles Turner].

The longest palindromic genus-species combination is ORIZABUS SUBAZIRO
(a species of scarab beetle).
Other palindromic genus-species combinations are AHA HA (a sphecid)
and XELA ALEX (a species of syrphid fly).

Palindromic place names include
ANAHANAHANA (Madagascar),
KANAKANAK (Alaska),
KINIKINIK (Alberta),
NEUQUEN (a river, province, and city in Argentina), and
WASSAMASSAW Road (near Summerville, South Carolina). The northernmost palindrome is

QAANAAQ (the administrative capital of Northern Greenland).
A web page which attempts to show all palindromic place names is at

http://www.nwlink.com/~dtilque/palplaces/index.html.

GLENELG is one of the most common palindromic geographic names
worldwide. The original is a village in Scotland. There's also a
town in Maryland, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, a village in
Nova Scotia, and a township in Ontario. Because there was a Lord
Glenelg (the only one with that name) who was the British Colonial
Secretary in the 1830s, the name is on various other features, such
as streets and rivers, in Australia and New Zealand. At Glenelg
High School in Maryland, the yearbook is the Palindrome.

AKASAKA is a district in Chuo, Tokyo [Joseph Hernandez].

The Finnish word SAIPPUAKIVIKAUPPIAS (a soapstone seller) is
the longest known palindrome in any language according to the
Guinness Book of World Records. It is claimed that two other
Finnish palindromes are SAIPPUAKUPPINIPPUKAUPPIAS (soap cup
trader) and SOLUTOMAATTIMITTAAMOTULOS (the result from a
measurement laboratory for tomatoes) although technically the latter
is a compound of four words. The Swedish word

PORTUGALRALLARLAGUTROP (22 letters) is listed in
Guinness, Swedish 1989 edition, but is not found in
dictionaries.

According to Maarten van Muijen, the longest palindrome in Dutch is
PARTERRESERRETRAP, which is translated "stairs from the main
floor to a glass-covered terrace."
A reader of this page provided a longer Dutch palindrome,
KOORTSMEETSYSTEEMSTROOK, which she translates as
"fever measure system strip."
Hans Timp says both of these words, and another he provided, NEPPARTERRETRAPPEN,

are made for palindroming and are not found in dictionaries. He says the
longest real Dutch word which is a palindrome is
MEETSYSTEEM, meaning "measuring system."

Miroslav Sedivy writes, "There is one excellent Czech (also Slovak) palindrome
unique by its usage: TAHAT (even vertically symmetrical). It
means 'pull' in sense of pulling a door to open it. So if you see
it on a transparent sticker on a glass door (and I've seen many
such doors in Czechoslovakia), it's interesting to see people
pulling doors from both sides..."

Common everyday English palindromes (including a few very common
abbreviations) are A, AHA, BB, BIB, BOB, BOOB, BUB, CIVIC, DAD,
DEED, DEIFIED, DENNED, DEWED, DID, DUD, DVD, EKE, ERE, EVE, EWE, EYE,
GAG, GIG, HAH, HUH, HUH-UH, I, KAYAK, KOOK, LEVEL, MA’AM, MADAM, MOM, MUM,
NOON, NUN, PAP, PCP, PEEP, PEP, PIP, POOP, POP, PULL-UP, PUP, PUT-UP,
RACECAR, RADAR, REDDER, REFER, REPAPER, REVIVER, ROTATOR, ROTOR,
SAGAS, SEES, SEXES, SHAHS, SIS, SOLOS, SOS, STATS, TAT, TENET, TIT,
TNT, TOT, TOOT, TUT, TUT-TUT, WOW, and ZZZ.

Common personal names include ADA, ANNA, ASA, AVA, BOB, CEC (for
Cecil), ELLE, EVE, HANNAH, LIL, NAN, OTTO, VIV, and VYV.

REDIVIDER is the name of a Canadian band. The word does not
appear in the OED2 and an Internet search in March 2000 failed to
find a single use of the word, except for its appearance in lists of
palindromes or as the name of the band.

RELEVELER is the name of a rock band. However, the
word is not found in the OED2 and does not appear to exist on the
Internet except as the name of the rock band or as an example of a
palindrome.

DELEVELED is used in fantasy role playing games to indicate
that a character has lost a level. Several usages with this meaning
can be found on the Internet.

Long coined palindromes which do not appear in dictionaries and for
which no usages have been found in Web searches include DEGARAGED,
DEROTATORED, DEROTORED, DESUFFUSED, REGARAGER, REROTATORER,
REROTORER, and RESUFFUSER.

The Hebrew alphabet has three palindromic letter names: MEM,
NUN, and WAW. A variant spelling of waw is VAV and
a variant spelling of another letter name, teth, is TET.

KRK is a Croatian island [Juozas Rimas].

SOS by ABBA was a hit recording with a palindromic
title and artist. Palindromic album titles include Ole ELO by
the Electric Light Orchestra, LIVE EVIL by Black Sabbath and
by Miles Davis, EVIL LIVE by The Misfits, UFO TOFU by
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, AJA by Steely Dan, and

AOXOMOXOA by the Grateful Dead. AHA is a Norwegian pop
group.

Palindromic drug names include XANAX, RAXAR, LEXXEL, LOZOL,
and MERREM [Dennis Miller].

YREKA BAKERY is a famous palindrome, the name of an actual
bakery in Yreka, California, which closed in the early 1960s. There
is now a deli with the same name.
An art gallery named yrellaGallery was later located next door to
where the bakery formerly stood, although in 2005 it was reported to be closed.
An album titled Yreka Bakery was recorded by a band called Pep Squad.
Mark D. Lew wrote in 2001, "About four years ago, on a road trip up I-5, I made
a point of stopping in Yreka to look for the famous deli. It was Sunday
evening, so it was closed, but I can attest that it does indeed exist. On
Hwy 24, between Walnut Creek and Oakland (where I live), there is a
building with 'Elite Tile' displayed in large letters, easily visible from
the freeway." Dan Tilque provides the name of a refiner in El Dorado,
Arkansas, LION OIL.

REGAL LAGER is a corporation headquartered in Kennesaw, Ga., as well as a brew of beer
[Mike DiCola].

In Swedish, NATURRUTAN ("nature square") is the title of a
nature TV program. And a somewhat contrived palindrome in Swedish is
PORTUGALRALLARLAGUTROP ("Portugal"=the country, "rallarlag"=a
team of navies, "utrop"=exclamation, outcry) [Fredrik Viklund].

LON NOL (1913-1985) was a general and political leader in Cambodia.

LEON NOEL was born on Christmas Eve in 1908 and became a child
celebrity in his hometown of Valparaiso, Indiana. He was included in
Robert L. Ripley's Ripley's Believe It or Not. Noel lived most
of his life in St. Petersburg, Fla. He died in Largo, Fla., on
Christmas Day 1999.

ROBERT TREBOR (1953- ), born Robert Schenkman, is an actor [Robert Sanders].

ANUTA CATUNA (1968- ) won the New York City Women's Marathon in 1996.
[Joshua Spodek].

Ramon LLULL (fl. AD 1300) was a Catalan mystic and poet whose
writings helped to develop the Romance Catalan language and widely
influenced Neoplatonic mysticism throughout medieval and 17th-century
Europe. He is also called Raymond Lully.

OXOBOXO (a small lake in southeastern Connecticut) is a palindrome
and also has horizontal line symmetry (Dmitri Borgmann).

GLYCYLGLYCYLGLYCYLGLYCINE has a 19-letter internal palindrome
from the first to the last C and another 19-letter palindrome from
the first G to the last G [Nick Papuga].

The longest palindromic cluster embedded in an English word is composed of the first
eleven letters in SENSUOUSNESS [Charles Turner].

More palindromes of four or more letters follow:

ABABA a genus of beetles

ADINIDA a group of protozoans belonging to the order Dinoflagellata. (W3)

AEAEA the Island of Dawn in Homer's Odyssey

AETEA a marine Bryozoan

AFOFA a Portuguese dance (Funk & Wagnall's New Standard Dictionary of the English Language, 1941)

AIDEMEDIA a genus of Hawaiian finches

AILIA and AINIA genera of fish

AITIA plural of aition, a tale devised to explain the origin of a religious observance. (W3)

AJAJA AJAJA one of various scientific names for the tropical American roseate spoonbill. Also called AJAJA and AIAIA

AKA AKA a rural district near Auckland, New Zealand

AKKA variant of acker, or a pygmy (OED2)

ALALA a Greek battle cry (OED2)

ALLAALLA Hausa (from Rex Gooch, Word Ways)

ALLENELLA a genus of molluscs

ALULA the bastard wing on a bird. (MWCD10)

AMMA (OED2)

ANANA variant of "ananas", the pine-apple (OED)

ARAGARA a genus of flies

ARARA a genus of birds

ARRA (OED2)

ARRAARRA US Indian tribe (from Rex Gooch, Word Ways)

ARRAWARRA a town in coastal New South Wales, Australia (Cambridge Dictionary of Australian Places, Word Ways)

ATTA (OED2)

BACAB one of 4 Mayan brother gods that hold up the sky. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1991)

BEEB informal term for the BBC (OED2)

BIIB a crimson fruit-dove from the Caroline Islands in the west Pacific Ocean

BOOB a foolish mistake or blunder (OED)

BURGGRUB the name of three villages in Bavaria (Encarta World Atlas, Word Ways)

CAMMAC copper halfpenny in use in Ireland in the early 19th century (The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, 1911)

CAUAC a day in the Mayan second, sacred calendar

CAYAC an iguana native to the Caribbean island of Carriacou

CILDLIC old form of 'childlike' (An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Word Ways)

CINENIC related to cinene, a terpene derived from cineol. (OED2)

DEEDEED euphemistic for "damned" under "dee" (verb) (OED)

DESESED an early spelling of "disseized" (OED)

DEUOUED an early spelling of "devoved" (OED)

DEVIVED rendered lifeless, devitalized (OED)

DEVOVED archaic word meaning devoted or dedicated. (W3)

DIXID one of the Dixidae, a family of mosquito-like insects

EBIBE (OED2)

ECCE (OED2)

EDIFIDE an early spelling of "edified" (OED)

EGGE (OED2)

EISIE (OED2)

ELLE (OED2)

ELLEMELLE a small community southwest of Liege in Belgium (Encarta World Atlas, Word Ways)

EMME (OED2)

EPEPE a West African tree of the Terminalis genus

ERORE (OED2)

ERRE (OED2)

ESSE (OED2)

ESSSSE old spelling of "ashes" in the sense "dust of the ground" (Hence used to express man's mortal constitution) (OED)

EVITATIVE a grammatical case, expressing what is to be feared and avoided

FINNIF slang term for a five dollar bill. (OED2)

GIRAFARIG the name of a Pokemon

GIPSY’S PIG the hedgehog. (OED2)

GNIPPING given to fault-finding (English Dialect Dictionary]

GOOG Australian slang for egg. (W3)

HADEDAH, HADADAH a large grayish-brown African ibis, with wings tinged iridescent green (W3, OED2)

HAGIGAH particular Jewish sacrifices (W3)

HALALAH var. of halala, a unit of currency in Saudi Arabia (= 1/100 riyal). (W3)

HAQIQAH esoteric truth that transcends human and theological limitations (Encyclopedia of Islam)

HAZIZAH a term connected with the rite of total immersion (Encyclopedia Judaica, 1972)

HO-OH the name of a Pokemon

IGIGI a group of heavenly spirits under the god Anu in Babylonian religion. (W3)

ILLIBILLI a town in the Sudan (Encarta World Atlas, Word Ways)

IMAMI a member of a Shi"ite sect (W3)

JIJIJ a small-leafed tree from the mangrove swamps of the Solomon Islands

JILLIJ the name of a lighthouse in Tunisia (Official Standard Names Gazetteer, Word Ways)

KAAK (OED2)

KAIAK (OED2)

KAJAK (OED2)

KAKKAK a bittern of the Ixobrychus genus found on Guam

KAZAK Turkic people of central Asia. (W3)

KEEK-KEEK a call used by children in the game of hide and seek [OED]

KEEK (OED2)

KELEK (OED2)

LAVAL (OED2)

LEEL (OED2)

LEFFEL an obsolete form of "leeful" (OED)

LEHAHEL one of eight seraphim in the cabala (A Dictionary of Angels, Word Ways)

LEMEL metal filings. (W3)

LEPPEL a spoon (English Dialect Dictionary)

LIA FAIL stone on which the ancient kings of Ireland were crowned (W2)

LITTIL a fourteenth-century spelling of "little" (OED)

LOCOL a small bee from the Philippines that produces sour honey and darkish wax

LUFFUL an early spelling of "loveful" (OED)

LUTTUL an early spelling of "little" (verb) (OED)

LYSYL the acid radical of lysine. (W3)

MALAYALAM Dravidian language spoken in SW India. (MWCD10)

MAM-MAM (OED2)

MAPAM (OED2)

MARAM (OED2)

MARRAM a type of beach grass. (MWCD10)

MINIM 1/60 of a fluid dram. (W3)

MODOM (OED2)

MURDRUM secret murder (W3)

MUTUM the razor-billed curassow, a large arboreal bird of the Amazon region

NAAN a round flat leavened bread of the Indian subcontinent.(MWCD10)

NAMAN (OED2)

NAN-NAN (OED2)

NAURUAN inhabitant of Nauru, a Pacific island nation. (W3)

NEEN (OED2)

NEFEN (OED2)

NEMEN (OED2)

NETEN (OED2)

NEUEN (OED2)

NEUQUEN a city in Argentina

NEVEN (OED2)

NEWEN (OED2)

NEYEN (OED2)

NIKIN a very soft animal. (OED2)

NIRURIN a constituent of the tropical plant Phyllanthus niruri (Dictionary of Natural Products, Word Ways)

NISIN an antibiotic produced by a bacterium of the genus Streptomyces (W3)

NORURON the chemical C13H22N20. (Dictionary of Chemical Names and Symbols, Word Ways)

OBBO (OED2)

OGOPOGO monster supposedly living in Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. (OED2)

OOLOOPOOLOO alternative name of Karanja, an aboriginal language of Queensland, Australia

OOROOROO a creek in New South Wales, Australia

OPPO British slang for a friend or companion (W3)

OTTETTO octet, a musical composition for 8 parts. (W2)

OTTO altered form of "attar", the fragrant essence of roses (OED)

OTTOOTTO 8-8 time in music (from Rex Gooch, Word Ways)

PARAPARAP a town in the state of Victoria, Australia (Australia Map Series Gazetteer, Word Ways)

PEEP-PEEP an imitation of the feeble sound made by young birds (OED)

PEEWEEP lapwing or greenfinch (W3)

PIP-PIP (OED2)

PIP-PIP-PIP (OED2)

QAWAQ a sea lion from the Aleutian Islands or western Alaska

QAZAQ var of Kazak (see above) (W3)

RACK CAR a railroad car having end racks but no sides. (W3)

RAFAR (OED2)

RATTAR (OED2)

REDER (OED2)

REIFIER person who regards an abstract idea as a material or concrete thing. (American Heritage Dictionary)

RENER (OED2)

REPPER the common foxglove or digitalis

RETTER (OED2)

REVER (OED2)

ROOD-DOOR door in the rood screen of a medieval church. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)

ROOR (OED2)

ROTAVATOR trademark for a rotory tiller in the United Kingdom. (OED2)

SANANANAS pale-yellow West Indian crabs (Dictionary of Jamaican English, Word Ways)

SAWBWAS hereditary rulers of a Sahn state of Burma (W3)

SEDES (OED2)

SEESEES Asiatic partridges

SEMITIMES an undefined term in W2 but logically meaning 'half times'.

SENONES a Celtic people living in northern Italy (W2)

SHALALAHS a former Indian village on the Umpqua River in western Oregon (Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Word Ways)

SIDIS a genus of beetles

SIMIDIMIS Jamaican dances (Dictionary of Jamaican English, Word Ways)

SIRIS (OED2)

SIRRIS (OED2)

SOBOSOBOS African black nightshades (Hamlyn Encyclopaedic World Dictionary, Word Ways)

SOOSOOS Gangetic dolphins

SPACECAPS a type of collectible trading disks, e.g. Star Trek

SUCCUS (OED2)

SUDUS a genus of weevils

SULLUS a genus of fish

SUNNUS East African antelopes allied to waterbucks

TALLAT a loft over a stable (OED)

TAMMAT as much hay or straw as a man can carry (English Dialect Dictionary)

TARRAT a loft (English Dialect Dictionary)

TAT-TAT (OED2)

TEBBET variant of "tabet", a Scottish word for bodily feeling (W2)

TEBET the 4th month of the Jewish calendar (MWCD10)

TEET (OED2)

TEKET (OED2)

TENNET dialectic variant of "tinnet" -- brushwood for making or repairing hedges or fences (OED)

TERRET a ring on a dog"s collar, to which a leash can be attached (OED)

TIBBIT another variant of "tabet" (W2)

TILLIT an early spelling of "tillet" (OED)

TINNIT variant of "tinnet", brushwood (English Dialect Dictionary)

TIPPIT sixteenth and seventeenth-century form of "tippet" (OED)

TIRRIT a fit of fear or temper; an upset of one"s equanimity (OED)

TOOT-TOOT a note or short blast of a horn (OED)

TOTTOT a fruit pigeon from the Pacific island of Guam, named for its cry

TUMUT a town in Australia, on the Murrumbidgee River

TUNG NUT seed of the tung tree. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1980)

UBURUBU a town in Nigeria (Encarta World Atlas, Word Ways)

UGOGU a breed of African goats recently used in genetic studies at Liverpool University in England

ULULU (OED2)

URAHARU a town in the Kagoshima region, Japan (Encarta World Atlas, Word Ways)

UREMERU a town in Colombia (Encarta World Atlas, Word Ways)

USSU (OED2)

UWOLOWU surpreme god of the Akposo in Togo (Guide to the Gods, Word Ways)

VELLEV a town in Denmark (Times Atlas of the World, Word Ways)

VENEV (OED2)

WAW-WAW (OED2)

WELEW (OED2)

WEREW (OED2)

WOLLOW (OED2)

WORROW (OED2)

WOW-WOW the silver gibbon of Java

XITIX a name for L-ascorbic acid (Dictionary of Chemical Names and Symbols, Word Ways)

XOLOX a locality in central Mexico (Official Guide to Railways, Word Ways)

YARAY Puerto Rican fan palms (W3)

YUCUCUY a populated place in Mexico (Official Standard Names Gazetteer, Word Ways)

ZEREZ (OED2)

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REVERSIBLE WORDS

Some words which, when spelled backwards, form other words are:
AMAROID/DIORAMA, ANIMAL/LAMINA, DEIFIER/REIFIED, DELIVER/REVILED,
DENIER/REINED, DENIES/SEINED, DENNIS/SINNED, DESSERT/TRESSED,
DESSERTS/STRESSED, DIAPER/REPAID, DRAWER/REWARD, ECITON/NOTICE,
ELIDES/SEDILE, ENAMOR/ROMANE, GATEMAN/NAMETAG, LEPER/REPEL, LIVED/DEVIL, LOOTER/RETOOL,
MULLAHS/SHALLUM, PACER/RECAP, PARTS/STRAP, PILFER/REFLIP, PUPILS/SLIPUP, REDIPS/SPIDER,
REDRAW/WARDER, REFLOW/WOLFER, REGAL/LAGER, REKNIT/TINKER, REKNITS/STINKER,
RECAPS/SPACER, REVOTES/SETOVER, SATRAPS/SPARTAS, SKUA/AUKS, SLEETS/STEELS,
SLOOPS/SPOOLS, SNOOPS/SPOONS, SPORTS/STROPS, STRAW/WARTS [Pierre Abbat,
Randal May, Chris Hendricks, Rudy Wang, Stuart Kidd].

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 6

Last revision: Dec. 24, 2007

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VOWELS

In this section, "the five vowels" refers to a, e, i, o, u, and "the six vowels" refers to those letters plus the letter y.

A six-letter word with the five vowels in any order is AIOUEA (genus of plant in family Lauraceae) [Charles Turner].

Seven-letter words with the five vowels in any order are
SEQUOIA,
EULOGIA,
EUNOIA (alertness of mind and will),
MIAOUED,
ADOULIE,
EUCOSIA,
EUNOMIA,
EUTOPIA,
MOINEAU,
DOULEIA (an alternate spelling of DULIA which appears in W2), and
EUODIAS (a name in Philippians 4:2).
Allowing scientific names in biology, IOUEA is a genus of Cretaceous fossil sponges.

BOIEAU is a town in Belgium.
POAEUI Passage is in Papua New Guinea
[Philip Bennett, Susan Thorpe, Stuart Kidd, Rex Gooch].

EUNOIA is the title of a book by Canadian poet Christian Bok
which contains a series of univocalic prose poems. The first 20 or so
poems use only the letter A, the next 20 use only E, and so on through I, O,
and U. The book claims that eunoia means "beautiful
thinking" and that it is shortest word using all five vowels.
However, the word does not appear in English language dictionaries.
Eunoia is the transliteration of a Greek word used by Aristotle
and found in the New Testament which is translated "good will," or "benevolence," or "kindness."
[Andreas Parsch, Philip Bennett, James A. Landau].

Eight-letter words with the five vowels in any order are
AEQUORIN, AEROBIUM, AGOUTIES, DIALOGUE, EDACIOUS, EQUATION, EULOGIAS, EUPHORIA, EUSOCIAL,
EXONUMIA, JALOUSIE, OUTRAISE, SAUTOIRE, SEQUOIAS,
and THIOUREA [Philip Bennett, Charles Turner].

Each of the five vowels occurs in both words of the title
AMOENITATUM EXOTICARUM, a book written and illustrated by Engelbert Kaempfer and published in 1690
[Charles Turner].

Eight-letter words containing the six vowels in any order are
IALOUSYE,
EURYOPIA,
EYDOUXIA,
EURYOMIA,
EUMYOBIA,
and
JOYEUXIA [Stuart Kidd].

Nine-letter words containing the six vowels in any order are

OXYURIDAE (pinworms),
OXYGEUSIA (abnormal sensitivity to taste),
LOUISELLA (a genus of fossil priapulid worm),
and
SEYMOURIA (genus of fossil amphibian). [Chris Cole, K. K. S. Bisht, Charles Turner].

Ten-letter words containing the six vowels in any order are

ANEUPLOIDY, AUDIOMETRY, BUOYANCIES, AUTOTYPIES, COEQUALITY, EUKARYOTIC, and OXYURIASES [Philip Bennett, Stuart Kidd].

The shortest word with the five vowels in alphabetical order is
AERIOUS (7 letters), meaning "airy." The OED2 shows one use of
this word with this spelling in 1657. Other words with the five vowels occurring once each and in alphabetical order are:
ABSTEINOUS,
ABSTEMIOUS,
ABSTENIOUS,
ABSTENTIOUS,
ACERIFLORUM,
ACERIFLORUS,
ACHEILOUS,
ACHEIROUS,
ACLEISTOUS,
ADECTICOUS which is not in the OED2 but which web pages show is an adjective which describes a pupa with non-functional mandibles,

ADVENTIOUS,
AFFECTIOUS,
ALEIKOUM,
ALPESTRIOUS,
ANEMIOUS,
ANNELIDOUS,
ARSENIOUS,
ARTERIOSUM,
ARTERIOSUS,
ARTERIOUS,
AVENIOUS,
BACTERIOUS,
CAESIOUS,
CAMELIOUS,
CARNELIOUS,
FACETIOUS,
FRACEDINOUS,
GAREISOUN,
GRAVEDINOUS,
MAJESTIOUS,
MATERIOUS,
PARECIOUS,
PLACENTIOUS,
TRAGEDIOUS
[Philip Bennett, Stuart Kidd, Paul Browning].

The longest word with the five vowels in alphabetical order is PHRAGELLIORHYNCHUS (a protozoan) [Susan Thorpe].

The shortest with the six vowels in alphabetical order is HAREIOUSLY (cruelly), which the OED2 shows
in a single citation from a 15th-century manuscript [Susan Thorpe].

Pierre Abbat says ACEITOU (Portuguese for past tense of to accept) and ALEIJOU (Portuguese for
past tense of paralyze) are the shortest words he knows in any
language written in the Roman alphabet which have all five vowels in
order.

The longest word containing all six vowels, with each vowel occurring only once, is
ANTISTREPHORRHYNCHUS (an extinct crustacean) [Susan Thorpe].
Other long words are
HYDROMETALLURGISTS and NONUNDERSTANDINGLY [Stuart Kidd].
The longest words containing the six vowels in alphabetical order, each occurring only once,
are ABSTENTIOUSLY and MARVEILLOUSLY (variant of marvellously) [Susan Thorpe].

A species of louse, Haemodipsus lyriocephalus, has all the vowels once in each name [Stuart Kidd].

The longest words containing the five vowels in alphabetical order are
SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS (34) and PANCREATICODUODENOSTOMIES (25)
[Stuart Kidd].

According to Philip Bennett, the longest words containing the six vowels in alphabetical order are
PANCREATICODUODENOSTOMY
and
PANCREATICODUODENECTOMY (in the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary).

ULTRAREVOLUTIONARIES has each vowel exactly twice.
The shortest such word is CUBOIDEONAVICULARE (Ligamentum cuboideonaviculare),
and the longest, USSOLZEWIECHINOGAMMARUS (a small crustacean) [Susan Thorpe].

PSEUDOPSEUDOHYPOPARATHYROIDISM (which is in OED2) has each
vowel at least twice.

OUENOUAOU (a stream in the Philippines) has vowels for 8 of
its 9 letters and may be the longest place name with one consonant.
PUNAAUIA (a village in Tahiti) has vowels for 6 of its 8
letters [Juozas Rimas]. OUABAIO (an African tree) has vowels for 6 of its 7 letters [Stuart Kidd].
OGOOUE (an African river) has vowels for 5 of its 6 letters.

SUOIDEA (the taxonomic group to which pigs belong)
is the shortest word with the five vowels in reverse alphabetical order [Dmitri Borgmann].
The longest such word is PUNCTOSCHMIDTELLA (a crustacean) [Susan Thorpe, Stuart Kidd].
Other words with this property are
DUOLITERAL,
PRUNOIDEA (a suborder of radiolarian protozoa -OED),
JULOIDEA,
MUROIDEA (the mice-like rodent family),
MUSCOIDEA (the family of two-winged flies),

PULMONIFERA,
RUDOIERA,
SUBCONTINENTAL,
SUBHYOIDEAN (beneath the hyoid bone),
SUBPOPLITEAL,
SUBVOICEBAND,
QUODLIBETAL (of an issue that is presented for formal disputation),
QUODLIBETARY (a quodlibetical argument),
TUTOIERA,
UNCOMPLIMENTARY,
UNCONSIDERABLY,
UNCONTINENTAL,
UNCONVINCEABLY,
UNNOTICEABLY,
UNOBLITERABLY,
UNOCCIDENTAL,
UNORIENTAL,
UNPOLICEMANLY,
and
UNPROPRIETARY
[Philip C. Bennett, Charles Turner, Stuart Kidd, Paul Browning].

Words consisting entirely of vowels include AA (a type of lava),
IAO, OII, EUOUAE, OO, I, O, A,
and IO, which is
an interjection in Chambers in addition to being one of the moons of
Jupiter. All-vowel words in the OSPD3 are AA, AE, AI, EAU,
OE. OO means "wool" (Scottish). The OED has the
interjection AIEEE.

AI is the three-toed sloth in
Chambers and a Biblical place name and a Russian river. Other words
consisting only of vowels are UOIAUAI (the name of a language
in Par´ State, Brazil) [Dmitri Borgmann, in Charles Bombaugh's
Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature, ed. Martin
Gardner). The Samoan word UAEA means "wire" and is actually
the English word spelled phonetically [Rémy Viredaz].
AIOUEA is a genus of the laurel famliy (Lauracea) [Charles Turner].

IOUEA is a genus of Cretaceous fossil sponges.
The scientific name of the roseate spoonbill is AJAIA AJAIA (or
AJAIA AJAJA); however, the J's would have been I's in the original
Latin spelling, so that the words would consist entirely of vowels
also.

Some all-vowel Hawaiian names for birds which are used in English are
AO - Puffinus puffinus (Manx shearwater), UAU - Pterodroma
phaeopygia (Dark-rumped Shearwater), OEOE - Oceanodroma
castro (Harcourt's Storm-petrel), IO - Buteo
solitarius (Hawaiian Hawk), OOAA - Moho bracatus,

OU - Psittirostra psittacea.

Allowing proper nouns, some words consisting only of vowels include
AIEA (a city in Hawaii),
EIAO (one of the Marquesas Islands),
EA (a town in the Basque section of Spain),

AEAEA (the legendary home of Circe in the Tyrrhenian Sea),
AAUAUA (a river in Brasil),
II (a place in Finland 40 km north of Oulu), and
OUEOI (an ancient Tuscan city in Etruria).
IO is the only name on any hurricane name list which consists
entirely of vowels. It is on the Central Pacific hurricane name list
[Brett Brunner, Juozas Rimas, Stuart Kidd, Pertti Malo].
Dmitri Borgmann gives OEAEI (the name of the wife of Ra-amen, the spondist of Pthah)
[An Archaic Dictionary, From the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Etruscan Monuments and Papyri, by William R. Cooper, London, 1876].

OUADI EL AOUAOUIYE is a location in Syria, AOUEOUA in Mauritania, and AOUEOUE in Togo [Rex Gooch].

Allowing Y as a vowel, some words consisting only of vowels include AYE, AYU,
EYE, IYO, EYEY, and YAYA (although I am not sure which of
these Y's are vowels!).

CWM (a glacial hollow on a hillside) has the rare W as a
vowel, as does CRWTH (a type of stringed instrument). Both
words are in MWCD10. They are pronounced "koom" and "krooth"
(rhyming with room and truth). Other such words, not in MWCD10, are
TWP (stupid), AWDL (an ode written in the strict
alliterative meters), and LLWCHWR (a city-district in Wales).
These words are of Welsh origin. The OED includes numerous archaic
spellings in which W or V is a vowel.

Words containing no vowels include Q.T. (as in "on the q.t."),
DJ, and RX, which MWCD10 classifies as words rather than
abbreviations. (The reason apparently is that the letters are pronounced. Thus
RV is an abbreviation when it stands for Revised Version, but it is
a word when it means recreational vehicle.) A plural of RX is RXS, which
has no vowels but three pronounced syllables.

Other words having no vowels are BRRR,
GRR, HMMMM, JHVH, MR., MRS., MS, NTH, PFFT, pH, PHPHT, PHT, PSST, SH,
SHH, SSSHHHHH, TSK, TSKS, TSKTSK, TSKTSKS, TV, YHWH, ZZZ,
HSH (hush, W3),
ST (silence, quiet, W3),
TCH (vexation or disgust, W3),
TCK (surprise or displeasure), and
TST (hissed sound enjoining silence, W3).

PHFFFT! and SSSSSSS are titles of movies from 1954 and
1973. The OED has TPRW (the sound of a horn).
GRRL is in the Macquarie Dictionary, with the alternate spelling GRRRL
[Charles Turner].

Note: In some of the following entries,
the consonants l and r function as sonorants and thus fulfill the role of a vowel.

KRK is a Croatian island [Juozas Rimas].

Richard VLK of Pittsburgh profited from a vowelless last name
in 1983 when he won over $20,000 by finding enough flip tops from
Pepsi cans to spell his name 1,393 times.

William P. MLKVY played basketball for Temple University. He is referred to as the "Owl Without a Vowel," although the Y
in his name is a vowel.

A banner held up at a baseball game read, "Hrbek, buy a vowel!" It referred to Kent HRBEK of the Minnesota Twins.

Strc prst skrz krk is Czech for "Put your finger through your
throat." Stanislav Tvrdík supplied the longer sentence "Vlk prv strhl srst srn zhltl hrst zrn."

Bydd y cyllyll yn y cwpwrdd wrth y bwrdd (Welsh for "The
knives will be in the cupboard by the table") does not use the vowels
a, e, i, o, and u.

The longest common word without an A, E, I, O, or U is
RHYTHMS, but these additional words appear in W2: SYMPHYSY,
NYMPHLY, GYPSYRY, GYPSYFY. The OED2 has TWYNDYLLYNG(S).
And WPPWRMWSTE (in the OED) goes nine letters without an A, E,
I, O, or U; GLYCYRRHIZIN (a constituent of licorice) goes
eight letters without A, E, I, O, or U. (In all these words, "Y" is a
vowel.)

The longest word in dictionaries having only one vowel is
STRENGTHS.

PSYCHORHYTHMS (W2) is the longest word with only one vowel,
ignoring Y [Stuart Kidd].

Some long common German words with only one vowel are
SCHRUMPFST (you shrink; 10 letters), SCHRUMPFT (he
shrinks; 9 letters), SCHWIMMST (you swim, informal, 9 letters)

SCHWIMMT (he/she/it swims 8 letters), STRUMPF
(stocking, 7 letters) [Gerd Baron, Robbie Ellis].

Some long words with only one vowel which is allowed to repeat are:
TATHAGATAGARBHA,
TARAMASALATAS,
HANDCRAFTSMAN,
STRENGTHLESSNESSES,
DEFENSELESSNESSES,
EFFERVESCENCE,
RETELEMETERED,
DEGENERESCENCE,
BEEKEEPER, and perhaps
EYELETEERS, which is in OSW but I am unsure whether the Y is a vowel),
INSTINCTIVISTIC,
DISINHIBITING,
KINNIKINNICKS,
PHILISTINISMS,
PRIMITIVISTIC,
WHIPSTITCHING,
MISSISSIPPI,
LOXOLOPHODONTS,
MONOPHTHONGS,
POSTWORKSHOP,
OCONOMOWOC (a town in Wisconsin),

STRULDBRUGS,
CURUCUCUS,
DUMBSTRUCK,
UNTRUTHFUL,
NUMBSKULLS,
MUNDUNGUS,
USUFRUCT,
SUSURRUS,
SUCCUBUS,
GLYCYLS,
RHYTHMS.
In addition
CHRONONHOTONTHOLOGOS (in Roget’s Thesaurus, at "blusterer"), the title and hero of a 1734 burlesque
tragedy by Henry Carey, is used for "anyone who delivers an inflated address" (Brewer's Phrase and Fable).
In his book Language on Vacation, Dmitri Borgmann
calls these words univocalics and lists SYMPHYSY as the
longest Y-univocalic [Marc Broering, Dan Tilque, Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett].

A word with six consecutive vowels is AIOUEA (a genus plant in family Lauraceae).

Words with six consecutive vowels include EUOUAE,
which W2 defines as "A word formed from the vowels of seculorum
amen, ending the Gloria Patri," AIOUEA (a genus of plants of the laurel family),
and DIOOEAE (a tribe of cycads) [Charles Turner].

Words with five consecutive vowels include QUEUEING,
the interjection AIEEE, which is in the OED, and COOEEING. (COOEE or
COOEY, a peculiar cry of the Australian aborigine, is in W1, W2, and
W3. The word is also a verb and both W1 and W2 show the forms COOEEING and COOEEYING.)
The OED2 has COUUIENALES, which is a variant of quienals, which comes from

quiennal, meaning "dispensation or indulgence for five years."
Other such words are MIEAOU (OED) and MIAOUED and MIAOUING (what a cat
does; OSPD and Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 5th edition),
ZAOUIA (an alternate spelling of
zawiya according to the OED2 - Jeremy Marshall),

JUSSIEUEAN ("pertaining to the natural system of botanical classification
devised by Bernard de Jussieu and his nephew Antoine Laurent de Jussie" [W3])
and ZOOEAE (larvae of crabs and relatives [Chris Cole]) or ZOAEAE [OED].
The Kaula (Pteralyxia kauaiensis) and
the Holei (Ochrosia kilaueaensis) are
endangered Hawaiian plants, and
the Formosan Sika (Cervus nippon taiouanus) is an endangered Taiwanese deer.
MIOEUOTICUS is a primate genus.

Cyclostremiscus beauii is a Marine snail from Florida
[Charles Turner, Philip Bennett].

The entomologist A. A. Girault named a
group of tiny wasps for writers, scientists,
statesmen, and philosophers (Shakespearia,
Beethovena, Goetheana, Marxella, etc.). He named a
wasp genus THOREAUIA for Henry David Thoreau.
This word has five consecutive vowels [Charles Turner].

Some words with four consecutive vowels follow (although in some of these words the Y may not actually be a vowel):
aqueous,
Archaeoastronomy,

Archaeoindris fontoynonti (an extinct species of lemur),
Aysheaia ( fossil onychophoran), ballyhooey, bayou, biyearly, buoyance, buoyancy, buoyant, buoyed, buoying, clayey,
dequeue, dequeuing, employee, enqueue, eyeing, flooey,
Gnaoua (a Moroccan ethnic minority group and part of the name of the Gnaoua & World Music Festival
which is held annually in Essaouira, Morocco, which also has four consecutive vowels),
gooey, guaiacum, Hawaiian, hooey,
joyous, kayoed, kayoing, layout, layouts, maieutic, obloquious,
obsequious, onomatopoeia,
palaeoanthropic,
palaeoanthropology,
Paraguayan, payee,
pharmacopoeia, prosopopoeia, Quaoar (a term in the creation mythology
of the Tongva people and a Kuiper Belt object discovered in 2002), quayage, queue, radioautograph,
reliquiae, royaux, Rubaiyat, Sequoia, subaqueous,
terraqueous, Uruguayan, voodooienne, voyeur, Yaounde [Nelson H. F. Beebe, Charles Turner, Paul Wright].

Craig Rowland reports that in Quebec, there is a region known as the
Outaouais, which, if in adjectival form, becomes lowercase, hence
outaouais. The feminine form of this adjective is OUTAOUAISE,
making it an eight-vowelled ten-letter word. He also says that in
Quebecois French, the word for bullfrog is OUAOUARON, with six
vowels in a row.

The Hawaiian word HOOIAIOIA (meaning "certified") has eight consecutive vowels
and is listed in the 1976 Guinness Book of World Records [Charles Turner].

Allowing proper nouns, CAUAIAUAIA in Angola has nine vowels in a row, as does
URU-EU-UAU-UAU (a language of Brazil with about 100 speakers in 1995;
also spelled URUEWAWAU or ERU-EU-WAU-WAU), ignoring hyphens
and OUADI EL AOUAOUIYE, in Syria [Susan Thorpe, Rex Gooch].

Allowing proper nouns, IJOUAOUOUENE, a mountain in Morocco,
has 8 consecutive vowels as rendered by the French [Guinness].
Also with 8 consecutive vowels are the Bled El HAOUAOUIA area
and OUAOUIOUST hill (both in Morocco), AGUINAOUIAOUI in Mali, and

ISSOUOUAOUAR in Niger [Susan Thorpe].
In Estonian, ÕUEAIAÄÄR means "edge of a fence surrounding a yard" [Juozas Rimas, Ahto Truu].

OUAOUIATON appears on a French map of the central part of
North America printed in 1693, and has 7 consecutive vowels. The word
was later shortened to OUAOUIA, and was applied to the Indian
tribe subsequently called Iowa.
[The Book of Names, J. N. Hook.]
Other place names with 7 vowels in a row include
AOUEOUA, (Mauritania),

AOUEOUE, Togo,
BOUAAOUAM (Algeria),
TIOUOOUORT (Mali), and
ES ZOUAOUIINE and TAZOUOUOUARHT (Morocco) [Susan Thorpe, Rex Gooch].

OIOUEAE is one of the tropes or Gregorian formulas for the close of the lesser doxology in church music, representing
the vowels in "World without end, Amen." [Music Lovers’ Encyclopedia (1954), by Rupert Hughes]

The ZOUAOUA are a Kabyli tribe living in Algeria and Morocco.
UAIEUE (variants: UAIUAI, WAIWAI or OUAYEONE) is a language of
Brazil indians. AAUAUA is a river in Brasil. These words have
6 consecutive vowels [Juozas Rimas]. Also with six consecutive vowels is

INOEIOIO in Mozambique [Susan Thorpe].

In Dutch, KOEIEUIER (the udder of a cow) and
PAPEGAAIEËIEREN (parrot eggs) have seven consecutive vowels, although they are
no longer valid spellings, having been replaced by KOEIENUIER and PAPEGAAIENEIEREN
[Joost Gestel, Tom Vernooij, John Slegers].

The Dutch word ZAAIUIEN (onions for seeding) has 6 consecutive vowels, still valid in the new spelling
since 1995, although this is not found in the Van Dale dictionary [Oscar van Vlijmen].

HÄÄYÖAIE, a Finnish word for "a plan for the wedding
night," has 7 consecutive vowels, and 6 of the 8 vowel sounds that
exist in Finnish [Tapio Tallgren]. However, Juha Mäkinen writes,
"There exists another variant of this word body which has 8 consecutive vowels
called RIIUYÖAIE. It means 'a plan for the night before a companionship begins...'
Both words are very easily understood by a native Finnish speaking person."

In Spanish, REHUÍAOS has all five vowels pronounced, as the "H" is silent.
It is a form of the verb rehuir (to avoid) and means "I/he/she/it avoided you"
[Ignacio Fernández Galván].

In Hungarian, fiaiéi ("those belonging to his/her sons") has five vowels (and five syllables) and only one consonant
[Ádám Szegi].

Gary Rosenberg suggests that QUACKSALVER and
QUICKSILVER may be the longest pair of words related by
changing two identical vowels to a different set of identical vowels.

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 7

Last revision: June 18, 2007

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UNCOMMON DOUBLE LETTERS (ENGLISH WORDS AND PLACE NAMES ONLY)

HH is found in withhold, bathhouse, beachhead, bushhammer,
fishhawk, fishhook, highhanded, hitchhike, roughhouse, washhouse,
watchhouse, aarrghh, hashhead, roughhew, fleshhood, roughhewn,
touchhole, youthhood, youthhead, sleuthhound, Pochhammer symbol,
arghhood, birthhood, dervishhood, feythhed, fishhood, freshhood, highhede, hochheimer, kahht,
melshhead, muchhead, neshhead, pariahhood, plihht, soothhead, stalworthhead,
tachhydrite, truthhead, unworthhead, whighhie, withhilden, wrathhead, wretchhead,
the German cities Forchheim and Lauchhammer, Hohhot in eastern Inner
Mongolia, and the Machhu River in India.
The OED has whhi-hhee, a 17th-century form of "wehee", a whinny or neigh [Andrew Bremner].

JJ is found in ZU'L-HIJJAH or
DHU'L-HIJJAH (the twelfth month of the Muslim calendar),

AVIJJA (ignorance of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism),
HAJJ (the Muslim pilgrimage), HAJJI, UJJAIN (one of the
holy cities of India), CRIGLER-NAJJAR SYNDROME, KUUJJUAQ (Canadian place name),
AD-DAJJAL (a term in Islamic eschatology),
HAJJAJ (an Arab governor in India),

KUUJJUARAPIK (or Great Whale River, village in Quebec),
MAJJHIMA, PUTHUJJANA and PABBAJJA (Pali/Buddhist terms),
MURAJJIH (a term in Islam),
TAHAJJUD (an Islamic prayer),
UJJAYI (ujaya, ujaya breathing, ujjayi breathing: an audible form of pranayama),
and KANGIQSUALUJJUAQ (an Inuit village in
Quebec).
The OED2 has JJ COUPLING SCHEME in a citation for another word, although
in other places the OED2 uses the spelling j-j [Philip Bennett, Stuart Kidd].

QQ appears in HOOQQA (variant of hookah in the OED),
HUQQA (a water pipe for smoking tobacco),
RIQQ (an Egyptian tambourine),
SAQQ (a style of Islamic document),

SAQQARA (a village in Egypt),
ZAQQUM (a tree with bitter fruit, mentioned in the Koran),
ZIQQURAT (an alternate spelling of zikkurat or ziggurat used in past editions of Guinness),
BURUQQU (town in India),
QQUEA and QQUERO (place names in Peru),

MAQQEPH (a variant of "maccaph," a Hebrew diacritic, similar to a hyphen, OED),
BAQQARA (a cattle-breeding Arab people of Sudan, OED), and
HALUQQAH (a variant of "chalukah," Jewish relief funds, OED)
[Juozas Rimas, Jonathan Hoefler, Stuart Kidd].

UU occurs in carduus, continuum, duumvir, duumviral,
duumvirate, Equuleus (a constellation), Equus, ignis fatuus, individuum, in perpetuum,
intermenstruum, kere perpetuum, lituus, menstruum, mutuum, muumuu, obliquus, perpetuum mobile,
praecipuum, Puuc, residuum, sadalsuud, semicontinuum, Shuvuuia (a Mongolian dinosaur), Smectymnuus,
squush(y), triduum, vacuum, weltanschauung, zuurveldt.
The OED2 has bauude, bestuur, bustuus, couuienales, dyluuye, huus, inaniloquution, intervacuum, kouuuele, kuuant,
neuu, paramenstruum, plentuuste, premenstruum, postmenstruum, pruu, puukko, quuik, quurt, riuulet, sleuuol,
spuugslang, squuncke, suuel, suuen, suum, truu, tuum, uuen, ventriloquus, and yuu.
Nuku pu'u is a group of very rare Hawaiian honeycreepers [Charles Turner, Philip Bennett].

Suuwassea emilieae is a newly-named dinosaur [Charles Turner].

UU is very common in Dutch and in Polynesian place names.

VV. The complete list from the UKACD: civvy, divvy,
navvy, savvy, bovver, chivvy, luvvie, revved, skivvy, spivvy, chivved,
civvies, divvied, divvies, flivver, luvvies, navvied, navvies,
revving, savvied, savvies, shivved, chivvied, chivvies, chivving,
divvying, flivvers, navvying, savvying, shivving, skivvies, bovver
boy, chivvying, bovver boys, steam-navvy, bovver boots, civvy street,
improvvisatore. Other words with a double V not in that dictionary
are bivvy (slang for bivouac) and bivver (a variant of bever).
Chambers has devvel, bevvy, bivvy, and crivvens.
The OED2 has bruvver, evviva, javver, lavvy, mivvy, muvver, pavvy, scavvy, and sivvens.
[Philip Bennett]

WW occurs in arrowweed, arrowwood, arrowworm, bawways, bowwoman,
bowwood, bowwow, cowweed, cowwheat, dewworm, glowworm, hollowware, hollowwort, lowwood,
mallowwort, mawworm, meadowwort, pillowwork, plowwise, plowwoman, plowwright,
powwow, powwower, powwowism, rainbowweed, sawway, sawworker, sawwort,
screwwise, screwworm, shawwal, showworm, showworthy, skewwhiff,
skewwise, slowworm, sparrowwort, squawweed, strawwalker, strawweight, strawworm,
swallowwort, tallowweed, throwwort, viewworthy, whitlowwort,
willowware, willowweed, willowworm, willowwort, windowward,
windowwards, windowwise, yawweed, yellowware, yellowweed, yellowwood,
yellowwort, Cirkewwa (place name in Malta), and Tsawwassen (place name in
Canada),
Oewwgger (island in Indonesia),
Mutawwa (the religious police of Saudi Arabia) [Pertti Malo].

XX does not occur in any words found in ordinary dictionaries.
However, W3 has XX-DISEASE and the OED has WAXXENN (an
old form of the verb, to wax, to increase in size). Proper nouns
containing xx include EXXON, FOXX, MAXXAM, BEXXAR (a
therapeutic antibody), and LEXXEL and VIOXX (prescription drugs). ZAXXON was a popular arcade game in the
1980s [Fred Schneider].

LEXX is a science-fiction TV series [Philip Bennett].
OXXO is the designation of a four-panel sliding glass door with the two center panels operable [Philip Bennett].
REXX is an acronym for Restructured EXtended eXecutor, and thus there are
AREXX, FREEREXX, and REXXWARE [Philip Bennett].
According to an article in Time, the
name Exxon was chosen partly because it meant nothing in any language
and the article reported researchers concluded that XX occurs in no
language. However, the double X is common in the Maltese language.
For example, JGHAXXAQ is the Maltese word for "enchanting,"
according to Lorie Church.

YY occurs in AL FAYYUM, AL-UBAYYID, AYYUBID (Kurdish dynasty founded by
Saladin in the 12th century), CUBBYYEW
(large oceanic fish),
DUBAYY (Dubai), GAYYOU, GROZNYY (variant of Grozny), HAYYAN,
IYYAR (an alternate spelling of Iyar, a month in the Jewish
calendar), JABIR IBN HAYYAN, KHAYYAM, KRYVYY RIH, KRYVYY ROG

(a city in Ukraine), MAYYALI, NABEREZHNYYE CHELNY (an
alternate spelling for the name of a Russian port), OMAYYAD or

UMAYYAD, PIYYUT (a liturgical poem in Judaism), SAYYID
(a descendant of Muhammad through Hussein), SNARLEYYOW (slang
for "dog"; found in W2), YABLONOVYY (a Russian mountain
range), ZAKIYYA (an alternate spelling for a female given
name), and ABU SAYYAF (a Muslim extremist group).
The OED2 has byyond, cyyn, deyyte, dyyss, eyyr, gyylde, gyyste, lyyf, lyyn, myyld, myys, pryys, pyynte,
ryyf, ryynse, ryyt, schyyd, syyk, teryynge, twyys, tyyn, wyyfe, wyys, yye, yyeve, yyldyd, yynge, yyoked, yyrne, and yys.
[Philip Bennett]

In addition, in the American Heritage Dictionary on CD-ROM,
BODYBUILDER is misspelled as BODYYBUILDER.

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TRIPLE LETTERS

In this section, triple letters separated by a space or hyphen are
excluded.

AAA. KAAAWA is a city in Hawaii. FAAA is a city
in Tahiti. NÄÄTÄAAPA is a marsh in Finland
[Juozas Rimas]. However, Mikko Jokelainen reports that "in the
Finnish language a and ä are considered separate letters. The
name itself is a combination of the words näätä

(weasel) and aapa (marsh). If the last letter of the first word was a
normal a, there would be a hyphen between the two words." In

Estonian, OUEAIAAARE means "edge of a fence surrounding a
yard" [Juozas Rimas]. Tagalog has several verb forms with triple
a's, such as: HANGGA'T MAAARI (as much as possible) and
NAAALALA (I think of) [Scott Oglesby]. In Finnish,
VAA'AN is the genitive form of "vaaka" (scales), although
there is an intervening apostrophe [Mikko Jokelainen].
Cavaticovelia aaa is a Hawaiian bug (a troglobitic mesoveliid);
"aaa" is Hawaiian for lava tube [Arnold Menke].
AAADONTA is a genus of snails,

AAAGES, of ladybird beetles, and AAATA, of sponges [Stuart Kidd].

BBB. In 1752, Chambers Cyclopaedia has FLYING
JIBBBOOM, although the word is normally now spelled "flying
jib-boom." The OED2 has BBB, meaning "treble-black pencil lead."
[Philip Bennett]

EEE. The OED has PEEENT as an alternate spelling for
"peent," defined as "a representation of the high whistling sound
emitted by a woodcock." The OED has SEEËR as a rare
spelling for "one who sees or beholds," the spelling designed to
avoid the negative connotations that attach to a seer. While
watching TV news, Ted Clarke saw the name TELEEEL on a road
sign in the vicinity of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Clarke also mentions that as the result of a spelling error
POSTEEEN appears in Chambers Twentieth Century
Dictionary 1976 reprint of its 1972 Edition. In Russian,
long-necked (animal) is DLINOSHEEE (zhivotnoe). According to
Alain Kradolfer, créée is a form of the French
verb "créer" (to create). Juli VEEE is the name of a former soccer player.

A search of the OED for triple E's which occur in citations but not
as vocabulary entries found quite a few examples including:
WEEEST (a superlative of "wee"), AGREEETH (in a 1598
citation), two early citations in which "eel" is spelled EEEL
and citations which have the words FREEER and FREEEST.

W3 on CD (version 2.5) has LICENSEEE, but this seems to be an
error because the word is spelled LICENSEE in the printed dictionary.

FFF. SCHIFFFRACHT and SCHIFFFAHRT are found in
German, according to Oscar van Vlijmen. The
German word FLUSSSCHIFFFAHRT (with two triplets) means
"navigation on a river" and
appears in The Pocket Oxford-Duden German Dictionary

[Gerd Baron].

SAUERSTOFFFLASCHEN is the German word for "oxygen tank,"
according to typeface designer Jonathan Hoefler, who notes that,
typographically speaking, the word calls for not only three f's but
an f-f-f-l ligature.

This website received an e-mail from Heike Wunschmann, who wrote that the
rules of German grammar say that triple letters are only allowed if
the following letter is a consonant. If it is a vowel the triple
letters will be double letters only, e. g. SCHIFFAHRT, WETTURNEN.

However, Craig Rowland writes, "German spelling reform now permits
SCHIFFFAHRT. The old rule, stated at your site, no longer
applies. Schiff + Fahrt = Schifffahrt; even though the second letter
in Fahrt is a vowel, the tripling occurs. This reform results in
possibly hundreds of words suddenly being tripled, such as

BETTTISCH (bed table). Even cases where there was hyphenation,
there is now elision: ZOOORGANISATION instead of
Zoo-Organisation. All German spelling reform is outlined in the new
Duden. It is still permissible for the time being to spell the words
in the 'old' way."

III. Some scientific names formed by latinizing the Japanese name Ishii are
Tudicla ishiii (a species of fossil mollusk),
Coccophagus ishiii (a Japanese wasp), and

Semicytherura miii (an ostracod) [Gary Rosenberg, Charles Turner].
PAIONIIIYA-TSURO is a marine channel in Micronesia. With
hyphens removed, Yli-Ii, a village in Finland, becomes YLIII
[Juozas Rimas].
In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, a physician suggested WIIITIS as a term
for shoulder pain caused by excessive playing of the Nintendo video game Wii.

KKK. PIKKKULA is a village in Estonia, literally "long
village" [Juozas Rimas].

LLL. FRILLLESS (having no frill) is in the OED2
and WALLLESS is in W2 [Stuart Kidd].
At least two scientific papers refer to a WELLLESS microarray platform
in the context of microarray experiments where the compounds to be tested are
not segregated into wells [Jason Leith].

CHURCHILLLAAN (Churchill Lane) is the name of a street in
Amsterdam and some other Dutch cites. SOLLLEISTUNG is not
easily found in a German dictionary because it is attributed to
Eastern Germany and probably not an official word. Its meaning is
"the amount of work or exertion dictated in advance" [Oscar van
Vlijmen]. STILLLEBEN is a German word for "still life." Heinz
Lueneburg provided this as an example of words with triple letters
made possible by a recent spelling reform. He writes that triple
letters occur only in compound words, as Still-leben, Schiff-fahrt,
Fett-troepfchen. CHILLLOSS has been suggested, although it is
not in any dictionary. Gary Rosenberg says SHELLLESS is "a
word that I keep trying to slip into professional papers (I'm a
malacologist by trade), but so far no editor has let it stand."

MMM. In German, KAMMMACHER means "a person producing
combs" [Gerd Baron]. In the OED2, MMM and MMMM are in citations, meaning "expressing satisfaction" [Philip Bennett].

According to Jesse Kellerman, in Hebrew MMMON (pronounced
"mimamon") means "from money." It appears in a medieval commentary to
the Talmud, tractate Gittin (and probably elsewhere).

NNN. According to Gerd Baron, in German KENNNUMMER
means "a marking number." In the OED2, CONNNINGE is a variant spelling of cunning [Philip Bennett].

OOO. LAPAROHYSTEROSALPINGOOOPHORECTOMY (removal of the
female reproductive organs) appears in Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary. With
hyphens removed, Kaansoo-Oja, an Estonian populated place, becomes

KAANSOOOJA. SOOOTSA is a village in Estonia, literally
"end of a bog" [Juozas Rimas].

PPP. Kit Senior writes, "In German, KREPPPAPIER
(meaning 'crepe paper') is admissible in the new spelling reform. For those Germans
who still feel uncomfortable with triple letters, it can also be spelled 'Krepp-Papier'. The
old spelling would have been 'Kreppapier'."
In the OED2, PPP is an abbreviation "pianissimo."

RRR. BRRR (an interjection expressive of shivering) is
in the OED2. GRRRL is in the Macquarie Dictionary, as an alternate spelling of GRRL [Charles Turner].

SSS. GODDESSSHIP is the only word in RHUD2 with a
triple letter (this word is spelled goddess-ship in W3). The OED2 has

BOSSSHIP, COUNTESSSHIP, DUCHESSSHIP, GOVERNESSSHIP, HOSTESSSHIP, and POSTMISTRESSSHIP.
W2 has GODDESSSHIP, HEADMISTRESSSHIP, and PATRONESSSHIP. Shakespeare used HOSTESSSHIP
in Act IV, scene iv of The Winter's Tale.

BRASSSMITH has been suggested, although it is not in any dictionary
[Stuart Kidd].
The mathematician J. H. Conway has suggested the term UNLESSS meaning "precisely unless," the opposite
of IFF [Mark Brader].

Maßstab (German for "scale of a map") in all caps is
MASSSTAB. FLUSSSTRECKE and FLUSSSENKE are found
in German, as are FLUSSSCHIFFFAHRT ("navigation on a river";
two triplets in one word) and HEISSSPORN ("a person with a
quick temper") [Gerd Baron]. In Dutch there is POSTTRAUMATISCH STRESSSYNDROOM although
this can also be spelled stress-syndroom [Benjamin Kloër].
In The Hague, Holland, there are two streets called the 1ST
MESSSTRAAT and the 2ND MESSSTRAAT. (Mess = the kitchen on
board of a ship; straat = street) [Richard Eisenberger].

ROSSSHIRE, Scotland is often spelled as one word,
it can be spelled Ross Shire, Ross-shire, or even
RossShire as well.

TTT. FETTTRIEFEND, SCHRITTTEMPO, and WETTTURNEN
are found in German [Oscar van Vlijmen]. Also in German,
BETTTUCH means "a sheet for the bed" [Gerd Baron].

The OED2 has the misprint TODDY-CUTTTER, as the citations of the word show it spelled toddy-cutter.
(The triple-T appears at least in the OED2 CD, version 1.14 and the printed OED2. The print version of OED1 has double-T
[Philip Bennett, Stuart Kidd].

UUU. WUNUUUNEN WUNNUFA is a point in Micronesia [Juozas
Rimas]. VERTUUUS and UUULA are early spellings of virtuous and uvula in the OED [Stuart Kidd].

YYY. YAYYY is given as a a variant spelling of yay! in the OED.
YYYEZU appears in the Official Standard Names Gazetteer, USSR, as does KYYYY, a variant of KYYY [Stuart Kidd].

ZZZ. In Dutch JAZZZANGER means "jazz singer," although the word can also be spelled jazz-zanger
[Benjamin Kloër].

---

QUADRUPLE LETTERS

The first citation for "iiwi" in the OED is from 1779:
"The birds of these islands are as beautiful as any we have seen...
Another is of an exceeding bright scarlet colour;..its native name is eeeeve.

ESSSSE (an obsolete form of ashes) is in the OED2.

LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH, a
town in North Wales, has been described here as having 4 consecutive
L's. However, Alex Willcox writes: "I've just been looking through
the article on multiple letters, and as a Welshman, I'm afraid I must
take exception to the assertion that the name
'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch' contains
four consecutive 'L's. In the Welsh alphabet, 'Ll' is one letter,
completely separate, and pronounced differently to 'L'. (Other
examples are 'Ch', 'Dd', 'Ff', 'Ng' and 'Th'.) As such, there are not
four consecutive 'L's, but rather a double 'Ll'."

Roger Fenton writes, "Alex Willcox is quite right about the so-called quadruple L, but in the same vein, we
have the word BLAIDDDDYN (or BLAIDD-DDYN: correct spelling requires inserting a hypen to
separate triple and quadruple consonants in Welsh), meaning werewolf. I personally think
the hyphen is copping out."

JÄÄÄÄRNE is an Estonian word meaning "the
edge of the ice." It has four Ä's in a row [Guinness].
KUUUURIJA is an Estonian word meaning "moon explorer."
However, the words are usually hyphenated as
jää-äärne and kuu-uurija [Mikko Jokelainen,
Juozas Rimas].

BRRRR (an interjection expressive of shivering) is in the
OED2.

According to Scott Oglesby, Japanese has a word for princess
that can be romanized JOOOO.
[Shaney Crawford suggests JOOO is more commonly accepted, however.]

ZEE-EEND is the newer spelling of a Dutch word meaning "sea duck."
Under the older spelling it was ZEEËEND.

---

A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 8

Last revision: Dec. 27, 2007

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TYPEWRITER WORDS

This section contains facts about the QWERTY keyboard and assumes
the usual finger assignments taught to touch-typists.

AFTERCATARACTS (plural for a condition that sometimes follows
cataract surgery), TESSERADECADES and TETRASTEARATES are
the longest words which can be typed using only the fingers of the left
hand. The first word appears in a Merriam-Webster medical dictionary; the second is in W2.
Other such words (some of which are not in dictionaries) are

ABSTRACTERS, ABSTRACTEST, AFTEREFFECT, AFTEREFFECTS, AFTERTASTES,
AFTERWARDS, ASSEVERATED, ASSEVERATES, BEGGARWEEDS, CASEBEARERS,
CRABGRASSES, DATABASES, DECEREBRATE, DECEREBRATED, DECEREBRATES,
DESECRATERS, DESEGREGATE, DESEGREGATED, DESEGREGATES, DETARTRATED, DEVERTEBRATED,
EFFERVESCED, EFFERVESCES, EXTRAVASATES, GAZETTEER, READDRESSED,
READDRESSES, REAGGRAVATES, REASSEVERATE, RESEGREGATE, RESEGREGATED,
RESEGREGATES, REVEGETATED, REVEGETATES, REVERBERATE, REVERBERATED,
REVERBERATES, SASSAFRASES, STAGECRAFTS, STATECRAFTS, STAVESACRES,
STEWARDESSES, SWEATERDRESSES, SWEETBREADS, TERRACEWARDS, TRADECRAFTS,
VERTEBRATES, WASTEWATERS, WATERCRAFTS, WATERCRESSES.

JOHNNY-JUMP-UP (a fast-growing flower or a brand name for a
type of toy) is the longest word found in abridged dictionaries that
can be typed using only the fingers of the right hand. Other such
words (some of which are not in dictionaries) are HOKYPOKY,
HOMONYMY, HOMOPHONY, HOMOPHYLY, HYPOLIMNION, HYPOPHYLL, HYPOPHYLLIUM,
HYPOPHYLLUM, HYPOPYON, ILLINIUM, ILLUMINOPOLY, KINNIKINNIK, LOLLIPOP,
LUPULINUM, MILLIMHO, MILLIOHM, MIMINYPIMINY, MINIKINLY, MINIMILL,
MONOHULL, MONOPHONY, MONOPOLY, NIPPONIUM, NONILLION, PHYLLOPHYLLIN,
POLLINIUM, POLONIUM, POLYONOMY, POLYPHONIUM, POLYPHONY, UNHOLILY,
UNUNNILIUM, and UNUNUNIUM.

The only last names of Presidents of the U. S. which can be
typed entirely with the left hand are TAFT and CARTER.

The only last name of a President of the U. S. which can be typed entirely with the right hand is POLK.

The only name of a state that can be typed with the right hand is OHIO.
The only name of a state that can be typed with the left hand is TEXAS.
The only name of a state capital that can be typed with one hand is HONOLULU.
[Alan Hochbaum]

The only names of chemical elements which can be typed with the fingers of one hand are
HOLMIUM and POLONIUM
[Alan Hochbaum].

Dmitri Borgmann gives this sentence which is typed using only the right hand: In July, oh my kill-joy Molly, I�ll look
in upon my jumpy polo pony up in hilly Honolulu [Stuart Kidd].

TYPEWRITER can be typed using only the top row of keys on the
keyboard. The following ten-letter words with this feature all appear
in W2: PEPPERROOT, PEPPERWORT, PERPETUITY, PEWTERWORT, PIROUETTER, PREREQUIRE,
PRETORTURE, PROPRIETOR, REPERTOIRE, REPETITORY, TETTERWORT. These
words have also been suggested: PROPRIETORY, PROTEROTYPE,
RUPTUREWORT, PITUITOTROPE, UROPYOURETER.

Chris Cole (Wordplay) gives TEETERTOTTER, although
MWCD10 spells the word with a hyphen. A person who rides
a teetertotter would be a TEETERTOTTERER [Stuart Kidd].
A reader of
this page suggests POWERTRIPPER, although this word seems not
to be in dictionaries. EUROPE and PERU can be typed
using only the top row of keys; Europe is the only continent that can
be typed using a single row of letters.

The only words which can be typed using the bottom row of letters are
ZZZ (to indicate sleeping), which is found in at
least one dictionary, and the interjection MM, which is in the OED.
There are no vowels in the bottom row. [Mark Brader]

SHAKALSHAS (plural of Shakalsha, a people emigrating from
Phrygia and colonizing Sicily in early times) is the longest word
which can be typed using only the middle row of letters on the
keyboard. Other such words: HAGGADAHS, FLAGFALLS, HADASSAHS,
GALAGALA, GALAHADS, HASKALAH, and ALFALFAS.

DEEDED can be typed using one finger. Some other such
words: HUMHUM, HUMMUM, MUHUHU, ZZZ, ECCE, CEDED, MUMMY, UNNUN,
YUMMY, YUMYUM, and MUUMUU.

DISMANTLEMENT is typed by alternating the use of both hands.
Other such words are ANTIENDOWMENT, ANTIFORMANT, ANTISKEPTICISM, ANTISOCIAL, ANTISUDORIFIC, ANTIVISITOR,
AUTHENTICITY, AUTOTOXICOSIS, CHAIRMAN, ENCHANTMENT, ENFLAMEMENT, LEPTOTHRICOSIS,
LEUCOCYTOZOANS, NEUROTOXICITY, PRODUCIBLE, PROFICIENCY, PROFICIENT, RHAPSODIAL, RIFLEMAN, SHENANDOAH,
SKEPTICISMS, SUBPROBLEMS, SUSPENSORIAL

[Patrick Coston, Stuart Kidd].

Byron Davidson suggested that EIGHTY-SIX might be the largest number which
when spelled out is typed with alternating hands, ignoring the
hyphen. However, Jay E. Lynch recently pointed out that
EIGHTY-EIGHT is larger.

POSTMUSCULAR is the longest word typed using alternating
hands, two letters at a time.

PLEASING is typed by using each finger one time. Some other such words
(all of which consist of eight letters and include the letter P) are
SCALPING, CLASPING, LIFESPAN, BIPLANES, CAPTIONS, PANELIST, and JACKPOTS.
Bill Teschek suggested these entries, and has a longer list at

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~teschek/words.htm.

NEBEPASIDARYSIMASIS (19 letters) is, according to Juozas
Rimas, possibly the longest Lithuanian word alternating consonants

and vowels that can be formed according to legal grammatical rules.
It means "a thing of masculine gender that will not be made by
oneself anymore". The meaning is obscure but possible, eg if Robinson
Crusoe had found a manufactured spade on his island, his idea of
making a spade by himself would be [the long word]."

---

CONSECUTIVE CONSONANTS

There are seven consecutive consonants in
HIRSCHSPRUNG'S DISEASE (OED2),
SCHTSCHI (variant of shchi, OED2), and
TSKTSKS (OSPD3),

TSINAMDZGHVRIANT'KARI (a Georgian village),
SCHTSCHUROWSKIA (a genus of umbellifer),
NIMPTSCHDORF (a place name in Moravia),
the name Herbert SCHACHTSCHNEIDER (a German tenor),
and the name Angelika KIRCHSCHLAGER (a famous mezzo-soprano)
[Alan Crooke, Philip Bennett, Juozas Rimas, Dan Tilque, Charles Turner, Eric Brahinsky].

A History of the Origin of the Place Names in Nine Northwestern States (Chicago, 1908)
gives an early spelling of Chicago that begins with seven consonants in a row: STKTSCHAGKO
[Stuart Kidd].

These words have 6 consecutive consonants: AARRGHHS [OSPD],
ARCHCHRONICLER,
BERGSCHRUND,
BORSCHTS,
BRONKHORSTSPRUIT (a town in South Africa),
CATCHPHRASE,
DORFSCHNEIDER (a surname),

DUFTSCHMID (a surname),
ESCHSCHOLTZIA (a genus of poppies),
FESTSCHRIFT,
FLIGHTSTRIP,
FRUCHTSCHIEFER,
GOLDSCHMIDT (a surname),
HANTZSCHIA (genus of diatom),
HERTZSPRUNG-RUSSELL DIAGRAM,
KAMPSCHROEDER (a surname),
KIRSCHSTEINITE,
KNIGHTSBRIDGE (a district in London),

KOBITZSCHWALDE (a place name in Saxony),
KOTZSCHMAR (a surname),
KRETZSCHMAR or KRETZSCHMER (a surname),
LACHSSCHINKEN,
LATCHSTRING,
LENGTHSMAN,
MALITZSCHKENDORF (a place name in Saxony),
MISCHSPRACHE,
NACHSCHLAG,
POSTPHTHISIC,
SCHELLSCHMIDT (a surname),

SIGHTSCREEN,
TSKTSKING,
VELDTSCHOEN,
WATCHSTRAP,
WELTSCHMERZ.
A genus of rhododendron is Rhododendron camptschaticum.
Ensatina eschscholtzi is a lungless salamander of the family Plethodontidae.
Eleutherodactylus karlschmidti is the extinct Puerto Rican web-footed coqui, a tiny frog.
There is a musical by Trisha Ward entitled NIGHTSHRIEK
[Rudy Wang, Philip Bennett, Denis Borris, Charles Turner, Stuart Kidd, Eric Brahinsky].

TRKNMLI, an extinct language once spoken in Asia Minor (Pei & Gaynor, A Dictionary of Linguistics)
appears to have six consecutive consonants, but the r is probably a vowel in the local language
[Stuart Kidd].

Robert G. Wirth writes,
"In Ukrainian, beet soup is called BORSHCH. So I can say:
'In Minneapolis there are two good borshchs, at the Ukrainian Hall and at Kramarczuk's Sausage Company.'
Trouble is, in gaining the extra H we sacrifice the T; but the plural still has six consonants."

ANGSTS is the shortest word with 5 consonants in a row. Some
other words with 5 consonants in a row are
ANGSTROM,
ANSCHLUSS,
ARCHPRESBYTER(ATE),
ARCHPRIEST,
ASHTHROAT,
BACKSPLASH,
BACKSPLICE,
BACKSPREAD,
BACKSPRING,
BACKSTRAP,
BACKSTREET,
BACKSTRETCH,
BACKSTRIP,
BACKSTROKE,
BACKSTROMITE,
BIRTHPLACE,
BIRTHSTONE,
BIRTHSTOOL,
BLACKSTRAP,
BOLTSTRAKE,
BRAUNSCHWEIGER,
BREASTSTROKE,
BREMSSTRAHLUNG,
BRUSHSTROKE,
CATCHCRY,
CATCHFLY,
CHECKSTRAP,
CHECKSTRING,
CHURCHSCOT,
CHURCHSHOT,
CORKSCREW,
DAWNSTREAK,
DEUTSCHMARK,
DIRNDLS,
DOWNSTREAM,
DOWNSTREET,
DOWNSTROKE,
DOWNTHROW,
DOWNTHRUST,
DRAUGHTSMAN,
DUMBSTRUCK,
EARTHBRED,
EARTHDRAKE,
EARTHFLOW,
EARTHGRUBBER,
EARTHSHAKER,
EARTHSHAKING,
EARTHSHINE,
EARTHSHOCK,
EARTHSLIDE,
EARTHSMOKE,
EARTHSTAR,
EIGHTHLY,
EIGHTHS,
ERSTWHILE,
FILMSTRIP,
FIRSTFRUITS,
FLIGHTSHOT,
FORTHBRINGER,
GHOSTSCRIPT,
HAETTENSCHWEILER,
HARDSCRABBLE,
HEALTHCRAFT,
HEARTHSTONE,
HEARTSTRICKEN,
HEARTSTRIKE,
HEARTSTRING(S),
HEARTTHROB,
HITCHPROOF,
HUCKSTRESS,
ITCHPROOF,
JACKSCREW,
JACKSTRAW,
JOCKSTRAP,
KIRSCHNER VALUE,
KIRSCHWASSER,
LANDSKNECHT,
LASTSPRING,
LENGTHFUL,
LENGTHS,
LENGTHWAYS,
LENGTHWISE,
LIGHTPLANE,
LIGHTPROOF,
LIGHTSHIP,
LONGSCHAT PINE,
MATCHSTICK,
MELANCHTHONIAN,
MILLSTREAM,
MUCKSPREADER,
NIETZSCHEAN,
NIETZSCHEANISM,
NIETZSCHEISM,
NIGHTCHURR,
NIGHTCLOTHES,
NIGHTCLUB,
NIGHTDRESS,
NIGHTFLIT,
NIGHTGLOW,
NIGHTSHADE,
NIGHTSHIRT,
NIGHTSTAND,
NIGHTSTICK,
NIGHTSTOCK,
NIGHTSTOOL,
NIGHTTRIPPING,
OFFSCREEN,
OFFSPRING,
OFFSTREAM,
PACKTHREAD,
PHENOLPHTHALEIN,
PINTSCH,
PITCHBLENDE,
PITCHSTONE,
POSTPHRAGMA,
POSTPHRENIC,
POSTSCRIBE,
POSTSCRIPT,
POSTSCRIPTUM,
POSTSPHENOID,
POSTSPHYGMIC,
POSTSPLENIAL,
POSTSPLENIC,
POSTSTRIKE,
POSTSTROKE,
RINGSTRAKED,
ROUGHSTRING,
SALTSPRINKLER,
SCHWARZSCHILD RADIUS,
SCRATCHBRUSH,
SCRATCHPROOF,
SHEIKHDZHEILIA,
SHORTSCHAT,
SNATCHPROOF,
SONGSTRESS,
SPORTSWRITER,
STRENGTHFUL,
STRENGTHLESS,
STRENGTHS,
STRETCHPROOF,
SUBPOSTSCRIPT,
SWITCHBLADE,
SWITCHGRASS,
TERNSTROEMIA,
TERNSTROEMIACEAE,
THOUSANDTHS,
THUMBSCREW,
TRICKSTRESS,
TURNSCREW,
TWELFTHS,
WARMTHS,
WATCHFREE,
WELLSPRING,
WELLSTRAND,
WINGSPREAD,
WITCHCRAFT,
WITHSTRAIN.

LIGHTSTORM, with five consecutive consonants, is a strain of Cannabis, the name of James Cameron's film production company, and the title of a Peter F. Hamilton short story.
PEWTERSCHMIDT is the name of a family on the TV show Family Guy.

Some proper names with 5 consonants in a row are
AHLSTROM,
ALTSCHULER,
ARMSTRAD,
ARMSTRONG,
BARTSCH,
BASSINGTHWAIGHTE,
BERGSTRAND,
BERGSTRESSER,
BERGSTROM,
BERKSTRESSER,
BERTSCH,
BETSCHKE,
BORGSTROM,
BRANNSTROM,
BRAUNSCHWEIG,
BURTSCHI,
BURTSCHY,
DUCHSCHERER,
EDINBURGHSHIRE (also called Midlothian, an administrative district of Scotland),

FERNSTROM,
FILTSCH,
FISCHTHAL,
GOLDSTRICH,
GOLDTHWAITE (place name in Texas),
GOLSCHMANN,
G�TSCHL,
GOTTSCHALK,
GOTTSCHEWSKI,
GULLSTRAND,
GOTTSCHEWSKI,
HACKENSCHMIED,
HAGGSTROM,
HALLSTROM,
HENTSCHEL,
HERBSTREIT,
HERRSCHER,
HERSCHBACH,
HERSCHKOWITSCH,
HERSCHTAL,
HILLSTROM,
HIRSCHFELD,
HIRSCHHORN,
HOCHSCHILD,
HOCHSPRUNG,
HOFMANNSTHAL,
HOLDSCLAW,
HOLTSCLAW,
IMSCHWEILER,
JANTSCH,
KALLSTROM,
KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE (a county in Scotand),
KLEINP�TZSCHAU (a place name in Saxony),
KLEINSCHMOGRAU (a place name in Silesia),
KONWITSCHNY,
KRETSCHMER,
LONGSTREET,
MALMSTROM,
MELANCHTHON,
MESSERSCHNITZ,
MISCHLJENOVATZ,
NITSCHKE,
NORDSTROM,
OBERSCHLEISSHEIM,
OLSCHWANGER,
PERTHSHIRE (a county and burgh in Scotland),
PETSCHNIKOFF,
PIETZSCH,
POETZSCH,
QUARNSTROM,
ROCKSPRINGS (a town in Texas),

ROTHSCHILD,
ROXBURGHSHIRE,
SALTZSTEIN,
SCOTTSBLUFF (city in Nebraska),
SOUTHSTREET,
STEINSCHNEIDER,
STELLPFLUG,
TELTSCHIK,
TERPSTRA,
TREITSCHKE,
WILDSCH�TZ,
WILHELMSTRASSE,
WINDISCHGR�TZ.

[Contributors to the lists of five consecutive consonants are
Byron Davidson, Denis Borris, Rudy Wang, Stuart Kidd, Todd Heimarck, Charles Turner, Dan Tilque, Eric Brahinsky].

FLORIDA and RHODE ISLAND are the only names of states which begin with two consonants [Dean Mayer].

---

CONSECUTIVE CONSONANTS - OTHER LANGUAGES

The Dutch words SLECHTSTSCHRIJVENDE and
ZACHTSTSCHREIENDE (that of some people there is one weeping
the lowest) have 9 consecutive consonants [Fred Pruis].

The Dutch word ANGSTSCHREEUW (a cry of fear) is a widely known
word with 8 consecutive consonants or 6 consecutive consonantal
phonemes. A Dutch word with 7 consecutive consonantal phonemes is

HERFSTSPREKER (speaker in autumn). It is not an official word
however [Oscar van Vlijmen].

The German words ANGSTSCHWEISS and RECHTSSCHWENKUNG have 8 consecutive consonants
[Darryl Zurn].

The Swedish word VÄRLDSSCHLAGER (a kind of world music)
has 8 consecutive consonants.

The Georgian word GVBRDGVNIT ("you tear us into pieces") has 8
consecutive consonants.

The Slovenian word RAZZVRKLJATI (to prepare the egg for
baking, making omelettes; a hacek over the second z) has seven
consecutive consonants [Rok Gajski].

In Slovak, ODSTVRTVRSTVIT has 11 consecutive consonants. It
means "to remove a quarter of a layer." The same word in Czech is
written as ODCTVRTVRSTVIT [Miroslav Sedivy].

The Croatian word OPSKRBLJIVAC (supplier) has 7 consecutive
consonants [Vjekoslav Babic].

In Czech, ČTVRTKRUH (quadrant) has seven consonants before the first vowel
[Brian Kell]. ZMRZLINA (ice cream) has five consonants before
the first vowel [Pablo Martín-Francés].

The French word SCHTROUMPFS (plural of smurf) is a monosyllabic
word containing one set of 5 consecutive consonants and another set of 4.

A reader of this page reports that in the Slovenian language
CMRLJ (hacek on 'C', meaning "bumble bee") consists only
of 5 consonants.

The Tashlhiyt dialect of Berber is known for its vowelless words, such as TZGR

(she crossed) and RGLX (I locked). Among the longest are TKKSTSTT
(you [fem.] took it off) and TFTKTSTT (you sprained it) [Benjamin Schak].

In Georgian, GVPRTSKVNI (you peel us) is a one-syllable word [Benjamin Schak].

Mark D. Lew writes, "If you allow that "r" is a consonant (which is
debatable), then words beginning with four consonants are commonplace in
Czech, as are words consisting entirely of consonants. (KRK=neck,
PRST=finger (or toe), SMRK=pine tree, SMRT=death, SRDCE=heart).
Words beginning with five consonants are not too rare either. CTVRT means
quarter, and Thursday is CTVRTEK. There is a professional volleyball player
named Bob CTVRTLIK. The same is true of Serbo-Croatian, to a lesser extent.
(CRKVA=church, MRKVA=carrot, TRG=market, ZRTVA=vinegar).
The great king of medieval Bosnia was named TVRTKO.
Polish also has many common words beginning with four consonants, and a few
beginning with five, though most of these include digraphs (PSZCZOLA=bee)."

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 9

Last revision: Jan. 16, 2006

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SOME COMMON MISSPELLINGS

The words most likely to be misspelled (ratio of incorrect to correct
spellings) according to a study of Usenet traffic several years ago
were DUMBBELL, OCCURRENCE, MEMENTO, FRUSTUM, COLLECTIBLE, AMATEUR,
DAIQUIRI, PASTIME, ACCIDENTALLY, PLAYWRIGHT, EMBARRASS, ACQUIT,
HARASS, and PRONUNCIATION.

The same study showed these words most frequently misspelled (by gross
count): RECEIVE, A LOT, AMATEUR, SEPARATE, REALIZE, THEIR,
DEFINITE, INDEPENDENT, WEIRD, EMBARRASS, ARGUMENT, NO ONE, ACQUIRE,
ACCIDENTALLY, OCCURRENCE, COLLECTIBLE, RIDICULOUS, MANEUVER, LIAISON,
GAUGE, ATHEIST, GRAMMAR, SUPERSEDE, KERNEL, and CONSENSUS.

The study does not reveal common errors such as IT'S/ITS and
YOUR/YOU'RE.

Another study of misspelled words at

http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/spell/error.html

shows the following words (or forms of these words) as the most
frequently misspelled: MINUSCULE, MILLENNIUM, EMBARRASSMENT,
OCCURRENCE, ACCOMMODATE, PERSEVERANCE, SUPERSEDE, NOTICEABLE, HARASS,
INOCULATE, OCCURRED, SEPARATE, EMBARRASS, PRECEDING, INDISPENSABLE,
DEFINITELY, PRIVILEGE, GAUGE, QUESTIONNAIRE, EXISTENCE, MINIATURE,
PRECEDE, WEIRD, RHYTHM, SEPARATELY, CONSCIENTIOUS, MISSPELL,
HIERARCHY, GRAMMAR, CALENDAR, and WITHHOLD. The author of
the website also points out, "Anecdotal evidence and personal
observation indicate that a few other cases where a "non-standard"
spelling is frequently used on the Internet are alright for

all right, alot for a lot, and it's for
the possessive its. However, search engines don't look for
extremely common words (asking one to search for posts with the word
the would turn up just about every post ever made) and looking
for two-word phrases (all right, a lot) is trickier than for a
single word."

Some of the words in the above paragraph have alternate spellings in some dictionaries (such as "miniscule" and "millenium").

Some other commonly misspelled words are BARBECUE and UKULELE,
although some dictionaries also give "ukelele" and
Chambers has "barbeque."
MWCD11 now has bicep as an entry, dated 1939, although the preferred term BICEPS is dated 1634.
In Samuel Johnson's abridged 1843 Edition of
his dictionary, FRUSTUM is misspelled as "frustrum." CALENDAR is
misspelled when used as the title of a chart in Noah Webster's first
dictionary, and spelled correctly elsewhere on the same page. (There
is, however, an unrelated word "calender.")
Bob Doerschuk reports that even professional musicians misspell ACCORDION, ending it with -ian.

The Internet search engine Google revealed that in May 2001 its
top five misspelled queries were
amtrack, volkswagon, jenifer lopez, william sonoma, shakespear.
In June 2001 its top five misspelled queries were
ticket master, wimbeldon, morpheous, victoria secret, anna kornikova.
In July 2001 its top five misspelled queries were
audio galaxy, bigbrother, recipies, mcdonalds, bluebook.
In August 2001 its top five misspelled queries were
rotatorcuff, southpark, niagra falls, destinys child, sailormoon.

STEGOSAURUS is spelled Stegasaurus in a Doonesbury comic strip in 2004 [Charles Turner].

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PANGRAMS

Pangrams are sentences containing all the letters of the alphabet.
Pangram is in the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., with the
earliest citation from 1964, although the word pangrammatic

goes back to 1933.

Here is a list of pangrams compiled from various sources. The number
of letters used is shown for most of them. The shortest ones are
obviously contrived and use obscure words only found in unabridged
dictionaries. One even uses a Roman numeral. Stuart Kidd assisted with
this compilation.

• "Quit beer," vows dizzy, puking, Michael J. Fox (by Idris Mercer)
• A large fawn jumped quickly over white zinc boxes.
• A mad boxer shot a quick, gloved jab to the jaw of his dizzy opponent.
• A popular belief is that fornication would be a quick fix for some overzealously judicious governments.
• A quart jar of oil mixed with zinc oxide makes a very bright paint.
• A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
• A quick movement of the enemy will jeopardize six gunboats.
• A very bad quack might jinx zippy fowls. 32
• About sixty codfish eggs will make a quarter pound of very fizzy jelly.
• Alfredo just must bring very exciting news to the plaza quickly.
• All questions asked by five watch experts amazed the judge.
• Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes (40)
• An inspired calligrapher can create pages of beauty using stick ink, quill, brush, pick-axe, buzz saw, or even strawberry jam.
• Anxious Paul waved back his pa from the zinc quarry just sighted.
• As we explored the gulf of Zanzibar, we quickly moved closer to the jutting rocks.
• Astronaut Quincy B. Zack defies gravity with six jet fuel pumps.
• Back in June we delivered oxygen equipment of the same size.
• Back in my quaint garden, jaunty zinnias vie with flaunting phlox.
• Ban foul, toxic smogs which quickly jeopardize lives.
• Barkeep! A flaming tequila swizzle and a vodka and Ajax, hold the cherry.
• Baroque? Hell, just mix a dozen wacky pi fonts & you've got it.
• Bawds jog, flick quartz, vex nymph. 27 (by Sir Jeremy Morse)
• Big July earthquakes confound zany experimental vow.
• Blowzy frights vex, and jump quick. (28)
• Blowzy night-frumps vex'd Jack Q. 26
• Blowzy red vixens fight for a quick jump.
• Boy, Max felt hazy during his quick weaving jumps!
• Boys of quartz duck phlegm, vow jinx. (29)
• Brawny gods just flocked up to quiz and vex him.
• Breezily jingling $3,416,857,209, wise advertiser ambles to the bank, his exchequer amplified.
• Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox.
• By Jove, my quick study of lexicography won a prize.
• Campus TV quiz: just why is gold buried at Fort Knox? [Games For Insomniacs (1966) by John G. Fuller]
• Cozy lummox gives smart squid who asks for job pen. (41)
• Cozy sphinx waves quart jug of bad milk. (32)
• Crazy Fredericka bought many very exquisite opal jewels. 48
• Crux: Why joking TV blazes FM PDQ? (26) (by Toby Gottfried, 2005)
• Cwm kvutza qoph jynx fled brigs. (by Greg and Peter Maggs)
• Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz 26 (by Dmitri Borgmann)
• Dangerously frozen, he quickly judged his extremities to be waterproof.
• Doxy with charming buzz quaffs vodka julep.
• Dr. Jekyll vows to finish zapping quixotic bum (by Idris Mercer)
• Dub waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex. 28
• Dumpy kibitzer jingles as exchequer overflows.
• Ebenezer unexpectedly bagged two tranquil aardvarks with his jiffy vacuum cleaner.
• Emily Q. Jung-Schwartzkopf XV, B.D. (26)
• Exquisite farm wench gives body jolt to prize stinker.
• Exquisite wizard flock behaving jumpy (by Idris Mercer)
• Fabled reader with jaded, roving eye seized by quickened impulse to expand budget.
• Few quips galvanized the mock jury box. (32)
• Five big quacking zephyrs jolt my wax bed.
• Five jumbo oxen graze quietly with packs of dogs.
• Five or six big jet planes zoomed quickly by the tower.
• Five wine experts jokingly quizzed chablis sample.
• Fjord-buck zags whelm qvint pyx. (26) (by Dmitri Borgmann)
• For only $49, jolly housewives made "inexpensive" meals using quick-frozen vegetables.
• Forsaking monastic tradition, twelve jovial friars gave up their vocation for a questionable existence on the flying trapeze.
• Foxy Gen. Schwarzkopf jumbled Iraqi TV. 32 (by Daniel A. Martinez)
• Foxy nymphs grab quick-lived waltz. (29)
• Fred specialized in the job of making very quaint wax toys.
• Freight to me sixty dozen quart jars and twelve black pans
• Frowzy things plumb vex'd Jack Q. (26)
• Frozen buyer just quickly keyed shocking weaver's $34,825,679 complexion.
• Frumpy veld wags quiz jack-in-the-box. 30 (by Idris Mercer)
• Glum Q. Schwarzkopf jinxed by TV. 26 (by Idris Mercer)
• Glum, wavyhaired excon bequeaths fake topaz jewel.
• Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil queen and jack.
• Guzzling of jaunty exile wrecks havoc at damp banquet.
• Gyps balk nth fjord cwm quiz, vex. (see note)
• G. W. Bush quickly fixed prize jam on TV. 30 (by Gordon Gerwig)
• Hark! Toxic jungle water vipers quietly drop on zebras for meals!
• Hick Jed wins quiz for extra blimp voyage.
• How jolly vexing a fumble to drop zucchini in the quicksand!
• How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. 30
• How razorback jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts. 49
• How razorback jumping frogs level six piqued gymnasts! 46
• How razorback-jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts!
• How vexing a fumble to drop a jolly zucchini in the quicksand. (50)
• I have quickly spotted the four women dozing in the jury box.
• I jump quickly, shaving two dozen fox bare. (34)
• I was temporarily forced to zig-zag and quiver furiously around big junky xylophones. (Chris, age 13)
• If Jack quiz bald nymphs grow vext. (28)
• In Boston: Jazzy (but malicious) squeak toy explodes, ending the lives of two children.
• J Q Schwartz flung D V Pike my box
• J. Q. Vandz struck my big fox whelp. (26) (by Mark Dunn, in his novel Ella Minnow Pea)
• J. Hoefler cabled: "puzzling over waxy kumquats."
• Jack amazed a few girls by dropping the antique onyx vase!
• Jack believed we quiz sphinx from Egypt (by Idris Mercer)
• Jack Farmer realized that the big yellow quilts were expensive.
• Jack-in-the-box quiz fed grumpy wolves. 31 (by Idris Mercer)
• Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. 31 (by Marvin Moore)
• Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward.
• Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack.
• Jay visited back home and gazed upon a brown fox and quail.
• Jeb quickly drove a few extra miles on the glazed pavement.
• Jelly-like above the high wire, six quaking pachyderms kept the climax of the extravaganza in a dazzling state of flux.
• Jim just quit and packed extra heavy bags for Liz Owen.
• Jimmy and Zack, the police explained, were last seen diving into a field of buttered quahogs.
• Jink cwm, zag veldt, fob qursh pyx. (by Stephen Wagner, Minneapolis, 1998)
• Jocks fix BMW, vend quartz glyph. (26) (Toby Gottfried, 2005)
• Jolly few pangrams vanquished by exotic kudzu.
• Jolly housewives made inexpensive meals using quick-frozen vegetables.
• Judge Powell quickly gave six embezzlers stiff sentences.
• Judges vomit; few quiz pharynx block. (31)
• Jumbling vext frowzy hacks PDQ. 26 (by Chris Cole)
• Jump by vow of quick, lazy strength in Oxford. 36
• Jumpy wizard quit having black foxes. 31 (by Idris Mercer)
• Jumpy zebra vows to quit thinking coldly of sex
• Junky qoph-flags vext crwd zimb. (26) (by Dmitri Borgmann)
• Just be very quick when fixing zip code mail. (by Ross Eckler)
• Just keep examining every low bid quoted for zinc etchings.
• Just work for improved basic techniques to maximize your typing skills.
• King Alexander was just partly overcome after quizzing Diogenes in his tub.
• Lazy jackal from raiding xebec prowls the quiet cove.
• Lazy movers quit hard packing of jewelry boxes.
• Many big jackdaws quickly zipped over the fox pen.
• Many-wived Jack laughs at probes of sex quiz.
• Martin J. Hixeypovzer quickly began his first word.
• May Jo equal the fine record by solving six puzzles a week?
• Meg Schwarzkopf quit Jynx Blvd. 26 (by Ted Clarke)
• Meghan deftly picks valuable jewels: onyx, quartz.
• Milk-vat fez bugs qoph-crwd jynx. (26) (by Dmitri Borgmann)
• Mix Zapf with Veljovic and get quirky beziers.
• Monique, the buxom coed, likes to fight for Pez with the junior varsity team.
• Mr. Jock, TV quiz Ph.D., bags few lynx. (by Clement Wood)
• Murky haze enveloped a city as jarring quakes broke forty-six windows.
• My grandfather picks up quartz and valuable onyx jewels.
• My help squeezed back in again after six and joined the weavers.
• My kind zap Fox TV, squelch GWB Jr.! (26) (by Meyran Kraus, 2005)
• Nancy Bizal exchanged vows with Robert J. Kumpf at Quincy Temple.
• NBC glad. Why? Fox TV jerks quiz PM. (26) (Scott Gardner, 2005)
• New job: fix Mr. Gluck's hazy TV, PDQ!
• No kidding, Lorenzo called off his trip to visit Mexico City just because they told him the conquistadores were extinct.
• Now is the time for all quick brown dogs to jump over the lazy lynx.
• Nth balks gyp, vex cwm fjord quiz. (26)
• Nth black fjords vex Qum gyp wiz
• Nth quark biz gyps cwm fjeld vox. (26)
• Nth zigs block Qum dwarf jive pyx. (27)
• Oh, wet Alex, a jar, a fag! Up, disk, curve by! Man Oz, Iraq, Arizona, my Bev? Ruck's id-pug, a far Ajax, elate? Who? [palindromic]
• On the boardwalk grave playful lizards quickly jump and exercise. (found by Jeff Glenn, 1978)
• Oozy quivering jellyfish expectorated by mad hawk.
• Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. 32
• Pangrams have subjects like "dewy fox quiz." 35 (by Idris Mercer)
• Perhaps President Clinton's amazing sax skills will be judged quite favorably.
• Phlegms fyrd wuz qvint jackbox. (by Dmitri Borgmann)
• Picking just six quinces, new farm hand proves strong but lazy.
• Pickled, Gorbachev jumps tawny fax quiz.
• Pink foxglove bouquet charms dizzy Jew (by Idris Mercer)
• Playing jazz vibe chords quickly excites my wife.
• Poxy G-men quiz FDR; LBJ whacks TV! 26 Terry Pollock
• Prized waxy jonquils choke big farm vats. 34
• Prodigal lesbians from Venezuela know just exactly how to eat quiche.
• Puzzled women bequeath jerks very exotic gifts.
• Pyx crwth fjeld, quok, vang, zimbs. (by Rev. S. Ream)
• Pyx vang quiz: komb crwth fjelds. (by Robert N. Test)
• Qu'est-ce c'est chez le vieux forgeron du coin J'ai pu boire le meilleur whisky?
• Quartz glyph job vex'd cwm finks.
• Quartz glyph jocks vend, fix BMW. (26)
• Questions of a zealous nature have become by degrees petty waxen jokes.
• Quick fawns jumped over a lazy dog. 32 (by Kenneth Daugherty)
• Quick jigs for waltz vex bad nymph. (28)
• Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim.
• Quick waxy bugs jump the frozen veldt (31)
• Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim. 29
• Quiet guys broke zip files with my coven’s jade ax.
• Quixotic knights' wives are found on jumpy old zebras.
• Quixotic Republicans vet first key zero-growth jeremiad.
• Quiz explained for TV show by Mick Jagger (by Idris Mercer)
• Qursh gowf veldt jynx zimb pack. (by Michael Jones, Chicago, 1984; see note)
• Raving zibet chewed calyx of pipsqueak major.
• Sex prof gives back no quiz with mild joy. 33
• Six big devils from Japan quickly forgot how to waltz.
• Six big juicy steaks sizzled in a pan as five workmen left the quarry.
• Six boys guzzled cheap raw plum vodka quite joyfully.
• Six crazy kings vowed to abolish my quite pitiful jousts.
• Six javelins thrown by the quick savages whizzed forty paces beyond the mark.
• Six of the women quietly gave back prizes to the judge.
• Six plump boys guzzled cheap raw vodka quite joyfully.
• Sixty young school chums jeopardized their lives by fighting zealously in a quaint market warehouse. [Word Ways]
• Sixty zippers were quickly picked from the woven jute bag. 48
• Sixty-five wildly panting fruitflies gazed hungrily at the juicy bouncing kumquats.
• Sphinx of black quartz: judge my vow. 29
• Squdgy fez, blank jimp crwth vox. (by Claude Shannon)
• Suez sailor vomits jauntily abaft while waxing parquet decks.
• Sympathizing would fix Quaker objectives. 36
• The black quartz lynx was a jivy imp of God. [Games For Insomniacs (1966) by John G. Fuller]
• The chancellor of the exchequer embezzled junk from gypsies with vigor. [Games For Insomniacs (1966) by John G. Fuller]
• The exodus of jazzy pigeons is craved by squeamish walkers.
• The explorer was frozen in his big kayak just after making queer discoveries.
• The five boxing wizards jump quickly. 31
• The job of waxing linoleum frequently peeves chintzy kids.
• The job requires extra pluck and zeal from every young wage earner.
• The jukebox music puzzled a gentle visitor from a quaint valley town.
• The July sun caused a fragment of black pine wax to ooze on the velvet quilt.
• The public was amazed to view the quickness and dexterity of the juggler. (60)
• The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog. 33
• The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 35
• The risque gown marked a very brazen exposure of juicy flesh.
• The sex life of the woodchuck is a provocative question for most vertebrate zoology majors.
• The sixty-five quickly jumping dogs and foxes were just shot by the crazy maniac. [Word Ways]
• The vixen jumped quickly on her foes barking with zeal.
• The xylophone orchestra vowed to imbibe jugs of kumquat fizz.
• The zeal of the brave boys quickly won praise from the exact old judge who wanted to give them an award. [Word Ways]
• Their kind aunt was subject to frequent dizzy spells, thus causing much anxiety and worry.
• Thumb frowzly, vexing jacks, PDQ. (by Eric Chaikin, New York, 1998)
• Travelling beneath the azure sky in our jolly ox-cart, we often hit bumps quite hard.
• Turgid saxophones blew over Mick's jazzy quiff.
• Two hardy boxing kangaroos jet from Sydney to Zanzibar on quicksilver pinions.
• Two joyful vixens squirt milk upon the caged zebra. [Games For Insomniacs (1966) by John G. Fuller]
• Up at the zoo a roving ox was quickly fed bug jam. [Games For Insomniacs (1966) by John G. Fuller]
• Uphill jogging will tax pounding heart muscle very quickly; better to be lazy!
• Veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck. 26 (by Michael Jones, Chicago, 1984; see note)
• Verbatim reports were quickly given by Jim Fox to his amazed audience.
• Verily the dark ex-Jew quit Zionism, preferring the cabala.
• Vexed funky camp juggler quit show biz. 32 (by Idris Mercer)
• Vext cwm fly zing jabs Kurd qoph.
• Victors flank gyp who mixed job quiz. (30)
• Victors flank gypsy who mixed up on job quiz.
• Viewing quizzical abstracts mixed up hefty jocks.
• Waltz, dumb nymph, for quick jigs vex. 29
• Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex bud. 28
• Waqf vozhd trecks, jumbling pyx.
• Was there a quorum of able whizzkids gravely exciting the jaded fish at ATypI?
• Watch all five questions asked by experts amaze the judge.
• Wavy Jake's fat zebra had Mexican pig liquor.
• We could jeopardize six of the gunboats by two quick moves.
• We crazed folk quit having sex, be jumpy. 32 (by Idris Mercer)
• We dislike to exchange job lots of sizes varying from a quarter up.
• We have just quoted on nine dozen boxes of gray lamp wicks.
• We promptly judged antique ivory buckles for the next prize. 50
• We quickly chased the zebras to a quiet drinking place just near my five bundles of flax. [Word Ways]
• We quickly seized the black axle and just saved it from going past him.
• Weekly magazines request help for and by junior executives.
• West quickly gave Bert handsome prizes for six juicy plums.
• Wham! Volcano erupts fiery liquid death onto ex-jazzbo Kenny G.
• When waxing parquet decks, Suez sailors vomit jauntily abaft.
• When we go back to Juarez, Mexico, do we fly over picturesque Arizona?
• Whenever the black fox jumped the squirrel gazed suspiciously.
• While making deep excavations we found some quaint bronze jewelry.
• Why jab, vex quartz-damping flocks? (28)
• Will Major Douglas be expected to take this true-false quiz very soon?
• William Jex quickly caught five dozen Republicans.
• William said that everything about his jacket was in quite good condition except for the zipper.
• Wolves exit quickly as fanged zoo chimp jabbers.
• Worn DJ: vex Gk HQ, clamp fubsy zit.
• Would you please examine both sizes of jade figures very quickly.
• Woven silk pyjamas exchanged for blue quartz.
• Xavier picked bright yellow jonquils for Mitzi. [Games For Insomniacs (1966) by John G. Fuller]
• XV quick nymphs beg fjord-waltz.
• Xylophone wizard begets quick jive form.
• You go tell that vapid existentialist quack Freddy Nietzsche that he can just bite me, twice.
• You will quite often be amazed by Jock's very weighty, size six sporran!
• Zany Jacques French's pub mixed watery vodka gimlets.
• Zelda quickly wove eight nubby flax jumpers. (by Ross Eckler)

In the following list, Stuart Kidd has unmasked some of the pangrams:

Crux: Why joking TV blazes FM PDQ?

The heart of the matter: why humorous television does better than radio?

Milk-vat fez bugs qosh-criod jynx.

A Turkish felt cap, discovered floating in a vat of milk, bewilders a wryneck (a bird related to the woodpecker) that happens to be nesting in an ancient Celtic stringed musical instrument decorated with the 19th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Junky qoph-flags vext crwd zimb.

Trashy flags, ornamented with a design resembling the Hebrew letter qoph, irritated an Ethiopian fly whose customary habitat was an ancient Celtic stringed musical instrument.

Fjord-buck zags whelm qvint pyx.

Male deer frequenting the banks of a fjord, moving in a somewhat zigzag course, overturn a box with a capacity of 77.16 grams.

Quartz glyph job vex'd cwm finks

Headline in an archeology magazine when some treacherous people from a Welsh valley found themselves irked at
the discovery of a (presumably forged) rock carving in quartz.

Veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck.

A wryneck woodpecker from the grasslands of Africa climbs up the side of a male bovid which is grazing on sacred Muslim-owned land.

Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz

Carved figures on the bank of a fjord in a rounded valley irritated an eccentric person.

Vext cwm fly zing jabs Kurd qoph.

An irritated valley fly humming in a shrill fashion jabs at the Hebrew letter qoph, as written by a Turkish tribesman.

Squdgy fez, blank jimp crwth vox.

A man orders his squashed-down hat to mute the skimpy voice of a Welsh violin.

Cwm kvutza qoph jynx fled brigs.

The wryneck bird from the communal farming unit designated by the Hebrew letter qoph and situated in a rounded valley, fled from the prisons on a ship.

Nth black fjords vex Qum gyp wiz

An esteemed Iranian shyster was provoked when he himself was cheated: an alleged seaside ski resort he purchased proved instead to be a glacier of countless oil-abundant fjords.

Jink cwm, zag veldt, fob qursh pyx.

A message instructing a spy to take evasive action in various terrains (from Welsh valleys to South African grassy plains) in order to plunder the Saudi mint.

Jumbling vext frowzy hacks PDQ.

Being bounced around quickly annoyed the disheveled taxi drivers.

Thumb frowzly, vexing jacks, PDQ.

Hitch a ride with disheveled annoying lumberjacks, right away.

Gyps balk nth fjord cwm quiz, vex.

The college students refused to take the nth fjord cwm quiz and this annoyed someone.

In the 1980s Michael Jones submitted two pangrams to Guinness:
"Veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck" and "Qursh gowf veldt jynx zimb
pack." Guinness chose the first one. Michael writes that the second
pangram "describes a scene where some Arabian coins are striking a
group of flies gathered on that woodpecker. (Qursh can be used as
plural according to W3; all my words come from W3). I liked this
second pangram more because I preferred using 'qursh' over 'waqf,'
but Guinness chose the other one."

In 2004, Bobby Tremblay submitted the following 26-letter pangram to this website:

"I (X's glyph Q'd of Zen) jab Turk cwm 'V'."
He explains, "X is a symbolic representation for Christ, glyph is a nonverbal sign, cwm is a word for valley, and 'V' is symbol for victory.
The question of the use of Q'd as an exponent may arise and the pagram may be changed to read,
'I (X's glyph of Zen) jab, QD, Turk cwm "V", where QD is found in most dictionaries meaning "each day."'"

The known list of creators of these pangrams is as follows: Stephen
Joseph Smith, Gyles Brandreth, Claude Shannon, Guillaume Macaire, Ted
Clarke, Vincent J. Carco, Kenneth W. Pratt. If one of these pangrams
is yours, please notify me and I'll add your name.

Jonathan Hoefler of the Hoefler
Type Foundry writes:

I'm a typeface designer, and as such I find myself
inexorably collecting odd words. When my studio develops a new
design, we typically run it through a broad collection of pangrams.
Most of these are shopworn favorites, but from time to time we find
ourselves adding one to the mix. "Wham! Volcano erupts fiery liquid
death onto ex-jazzbo Kenny G" found its way into the proofing
document a few years ago, alongside "Barkeep! A flaming tequila
swizzle and a vodka and Ajax, hold the cherry." An introspective
period produced "You go tell that vapid existentialist quack Freddy
Nietzsche that he can just bite me, twice." In honor of the esteemed
type designers Hermann Zapf and Jovica Veljovic, I penned "Mix Zapf
with Veljovic and get quirky beziers," and to another designer:
"Baroque? Hell, just mix a dozen wacky pi fonts & you've got
it."

The pangrams listed above are his originals.

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 10

Last revision: Dec. 16, 2006

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BEAUTIFUL (AND NOT-SO-BEAUTIFUL) WORDS

Wilfred Funk's list of the most beautiful words in English:
ASPHODEL, FAWN, DAWN, CHALICE, ANEMONE, TRANQUIL, HUSH,
GOLDEN, HALCYON, CAMELLIA, BOBOLINK, THRUSH, CHIMES, MURMURING,
LULLABY, LUMINOUS, DAMASK, CERULEAN, MELODY, MARIGOLD, JONQUIL,
ORIOLE, TENDRIL, MYRRH, MIGNONETTE, GOSSAMER, ALYSSEUM, MIST,
OLEANDER, AMARYLLIS, ROSEMARY. [Alysseum may be a
misspelling of alyssum, but this is how the word appears in Paul
Dickson's Words.]

In the same poll, other American writers, poets, and critics responded with these selections:
HOME (Lowell Thomas),
CHATTANOOGA (Irvin S. Cobb),

MELODY (Charles Swain Thomas),
NOBILITY (Stephen D. Wise),
VERMILION (Lew Sarett),
GRACIOUS (Bess Streeter Aldrich),
PAVEMENT (Arnold Bennett),
LOVELY (George Balch Nevin),

HARBORS OF MEMORY (William McFee), and
NEVERMORE (Elias Lieberman).
Louis Untermeyer responded,
"The most musical words seem to be those containing
the letter 'l'. I think, offhand, of such words as
VIOLET, LAKE, LAUGHTER, WILLOW, LOVELY, and other such
limpid and liquid syllables" [Charles Turner].

According to James Joyce, CUSPIDOR is the most beautiful word
in English [Dickson].

In A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (page 86), Annie Dillard writes:
"My friend Rosanne Coggeshall, the poet, says that 'sycamore' is the
most intrinsically beautiful word in English" [Sarah Gossett].

A survey conducted in 2004 by the British Council which asked more than 40,000 people around the world
to rank the most beautiful words among a list of 70 words found MOTHER first, followed by
PASSION, SMILE, LOVE, and ETERNITY [Charles Turner].

The ten worst-sounding words in English, according to a poll by the
National Association of Teachers of Speech in August, 1946:
CACOPHONY, CRUNCH, FLATULENT, GRIPE, JAZZ, PHLEGMATIC, PLUMP,
PLUTOCRAT, SAP, and TREACHERY.

According to reporter, editor, writer, and author Willard R. Espy,
the ten most beautiful words in the English language are
GONORRHEA, GOSSAMER, LULLABY, MEANDERING, MELLIFLUOUS,
MURMURING, ONOMATOPOEIA, SHENANDOAH, SUMMER AFTERNOON,
WISTERIA [The Book of Lists 2 (1980)].

In a 2005 column in the New York Times, James Gorman wrote that he was infatuated with the word
AMYGDALA. "I like its sound, you might say its musicality" [Robert Brown].

According to Espy, the ten ugliest-sounding words in
English, excluding indecent words, are FRUCTIFY, KUMQUAT, QUAHOG,
CREPUSCULAR, KAKKAK, GARGOYLE, CACOPHONOUS, AASVOGEL, BROBDINGNAGIAN,
JUKEBOX [The Book of Lists: The '90s Edition].

VICTUALS (pronounced "vittles") is the ugliest word
in the language according to Harry Golden [Dickson].

NYNEX was deemed to be the worst name of any company in
America by the publisher of Advertising Age [Dickson].

---

MOST FREQUENT APPEARANCE OF EACH LETTER IN A SINGLE WORD

Sources: Ross Eckler (Making The Alphabet Dance), Dan Tilque,
Rudy Wang, Bruce D. Wilner, Gary Rosenberg, Stuart Kidd,
Philip Bennett, Pierre Abbat, Keith Long, Chris Cole, Paul Wright,
Wordplay, Jeff Grant in Word Ways, Rex Gooch, Nancy F. Lockwood,
Darryl Francis in Word Ways, Charles Turner, Evan Etter, Jason Leith, and rec.puzzles.

Abbreviations for this section:

DIC = Dict of Inorganic Compounds, Chapman & Hall, 1992

DOC = Dict of Organic Compounds, Chapman & Hall, 1996

GHCD = Grant and Hackh's Chemical Dict, 1987

IDMB = International Dict of Medicine & Biology, 1986

A

There are 10 A's in the Massachusetts lake name CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG.

There are 9 A's in AQUAETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATOMANGANATE (DIC).

There are 6 A's in TARAMASALATA,
PALAEACANTHOCEPHALA,
TATHAGATAGARBHA,
TARANTARRATARA (the sound of a bugle or drum, OED),
and
ADAMANTOBLASTOMATA.
There are also 6 A's in
ASTRAGALOCALCANEAL and CALCANEOASTRAGALAR although the
status of these words is uncertain.

B

There are six B's in HUBBUBBUBBOO (OED2).

There are four B's in BUBBYBUSH (W3), BEBLUBBERED,
FLIBBERTIGIBBET, BUBBLEABLE (OED2), SCRIBBLEDEHOBBLE (OED2),

UBBUBBOO (OED2),
and BIBLIOBIBULI (a word coined
by H. L. Mencken which means "people who read too much and so are generally oblivious to the world around them").

C

There are 6 C's in CHOLANGIOCHOLECYSTOCHOLEDOCHECTOMY (IDMB),

PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS,
and
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK (OED).

There are 5 C's in COCCOCHROMATIC (W2),
CIRCUMCRESCENCE (W3),
MICROCOCCACEAE (a type of bacteria),

SACCHAROCOCCUS (a type of bacteria),
CHROOCOCCACEAE (the family of blue-green algae),
CHROOCOCCACEOUS, and ECHINOCOCCIC.

There are 4 C's in BECCACCIA, BOCCACCIO, CACHECTIC, CONCYCLIC,
GONOCOCCIC, MICROCOCCI,
SCACCHIC (of or pertaining to chess), and

COCCIC [RHUD].

D

There are 5 D's in DISDODECAHEDROID (W3),
DODECAHEMIDODECAHEDRON,
DODECICOSIDODECAHEDRON,
and DUNDERHEADEDEDNESS.

There are 4 D's in CONDIDDLED, DADDED, DIDDERED, DODDED, DADDLED, DIDDLED, DODDARD, DODDERED,
DEADHEADED, DISBUDDED, DOGSLEDDED, DUNDERHEADED, GRANDDADDY, MUDDLEHEADED, SKEDADDLED, WOODSHEDDED,
DENDRODENDRITIC.

E

There are 9 E's in DIHYDROXYBENZENEHEXAMETHYLENETETRAMINE

(GHCD).

There are 8 E’s in PEEKEENEENEE (OED).

There are 7 E's in ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATE (MWCD10).
There are also 7 E's in ELECTROTELETHERMOMETER.
However, no actual use of this word has been found.

There are 6 E's in DEGENERESCENCE, STEREOTELEMETER,
FEEBLEHEARTEDNESS, HEXAMETHYLENETETRAMINE, and

BEEVEEDEE (men’s underwear, OED).

F

There are 4 F's in RIFFRAFF, NIFFNAFF, CHIFFCHAFF,GIFFGAFF (mutual accommodation, mutual giving - W2),

COEFFEFFE (OED2), and FURIFUFF (OED2).

G

There are 17 G's in the Massachusetts lake name CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG.

There are 5 G's in HIGGLEHAGGLING (W3)
and HUGGERMUGGERING.

There are 4 G's in GAGGING, GIGGING, GAGGLING, GIGGLING, GLUGGING,
GOGGLING, GUGGLING,
AGGREGATING, CHUGALUGGING, DOGLEGGING, WIGWAGGING, ZIGZAGGING,
AGGREGING, DISAGGREGATING, and GANGGANG.

H

There are 8 H's in
DIPHENYLDIPHENYLPHOSPHINOTHIOYLMETHYLPHOSPHINE (DOC).
(The -thioyl- part of the spelling may be incorrect.)

There are 4 H's in DICHLORODIPHENYLTRICHLOROETHANE,
PHENOLSULPHONPHTHALEIN, PHOSPHORIBOSYLPYROPHOSPHATE, PHTHALYLSULPHATHIAZOLE,

ICHTHYOPHTHIRA (a crustaceous fish parasite),
DINAPHTHOTHIOPHENE (a derivative of coal tar used in moth balls),
ICHTHYOPHTHALMITE (a mineral: apophyllite),
ICHTHYOPHTHIRIUS (a genus of fish parasite),
RHAMPHORHYNCHID, RHAMPHORHYNCHUS (a genus of pterodactyls), and
OPHTHALMOPHTHISIS (abnormal softness of the eye - Dorland's Medical Dictionary).
These words appear in the OED2: CHROMOPHOTOLITHOGRAPH, HEILSGESCHICHTLICH, METHYLTRIETHYLPHOSPHONIUM,
PHOTOPHOBOPHTHALMIA, SHAHANSHAH, TRIETHYLSULPHONEMETHYLMETHANE, and WHHI-HHEE.

I

There are 9 I's in FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION.

There are 8 I’s in DISINDIVISIBILITIES (OED).

There are 7 I's in INDIVISIBILITIES, INDISTINGUISHABILITIES,
and SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS.

There are 6 I's in INDIVISIBILITY, MINIMIFIDIANISM (OED2), IMPOSSIBILIFICATION, INDISTINGUISHABILITY,
HISTOINCOMPATIBILITIES, PERICARDIOMEDIASTINITIS,
DIRIGIBILITIES, DISCRIMINABILITIES, DISTINGUISHABILITIES, DIVISIBILITIES,
IGNITIBILITIES, IMMISCIBILITIES, INDISCERNIBILITIES, INDISCERPTIBILITIES,
INDISTINGUISHABILITY, INELIGIBILITIES, INFINITESIMALITIES, and INVISIBILITIES.

J

There are 4 J's in JEJUNOJEJUNOSTOMY.

K

There are 4 K's in KAKKAK (a small bittern of Guam - W3),
KUKUKUKU (tribespeople of New Guinea),
KNICKKNACK (W3), KUKUMAKRANKA,
KAKKERLAK (OED2),
and KVIKKALKUL (a Swedish programming language).

L

There are 11 L's in the Welsh city
LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH. An
alternate spelling changes the -TYSILIO- to -DYSILIO-:
LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANDYSILIOGOGOGOCH
which still has eleven L's. However, LL is considered a single letter in Welsh.

There are 6 L's in ACYLHALOGENALKYL(ALPHYL)AMINE

and LLULLAILLACO (a volcano in North Chile).

There are 5 L's in ALLOPLASTICALLY (W3),
LILLIBULLERO, POLYSYLLABICALLY,
ALLOCHLOROPHYLL, ALLOPLASTICALLY, and LILLYPILLY.
The OED2 has INTELLECTUALISTICALLY, PALEOCLIMATOLOGICALLY, and POLYSYLLABILINGUAL.

M

There are 9 M's in
DIMETHYLAMINOMETHYLENEAMINOMETHYLENEDIMETHYLAMMONIUM (DOC).

There are 5 M's in AMMOPALLADAMMONIUM and FORMALDEHYDETETRAMETHYLAMIDOFLUORIMUM.

There are 4 M's in MUMMYDOM (W3), MAMMIFORM, MAMMONISM,

MUMMIFORM, MOHAMMEDISM, IMMUNOCOMPROMISED, MESEMBRYANTHEMUM,
MAMMECTOMY, MULTIMAMMATE, and MAMMOGRAM.

N

There are 6 N's in NONANNOUNCEMENT (W2),
ONNFANNGENN, and UNNBIGUNNEN (OED).

There are 5 N’s in INCONVENIENCING, NONCONFINING, NONDENOMINATIONAL, NONINTERVENTION,
NANNOPLANKTON, NONTANNIN,
NOVEMNONAGINTILLION (10³⁰⁰),
and NONWINNING, FENNOSCANDINAVIAN, INCONTINENTNESS, INCONVENIENTNESS, NONGAINSTANDING,
SHENANIGANNING, TENNYSONIANNESS, UNCONTENTINGNESS, UNCUNNINGNESS, and UNINCONVENIENCED.

O

There are 9 O's in
PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (W3
and OED2) and
DICHLOROISOTHIOCYANATOOXOPHOSPHORUS (a highly reactive liquid - DIC).

There are 8 O’s in TOOMATOOGOOROO (a spiny New Zealand shrub, OED) and
WOOLLOOMOOLOO (a place in New South Wales, Australia)

There are 7 O's in CHOLANGIOCHOLECYSTOCHOLEDOCHECTOMY
and CHRONONHOTONTHOLOGOS (Roget’s).

There are 6 O's in MONOGONOPOROUS, ODONTONOSOLOGY,
PROCTOCOLONOSCOPY, DUODENOCHOLEDOCHOTOMY, CHOLEDOCHODUODENOSTOMY,
PSEUDOMONOCOTYLEDONOUS, ZOOLOGICOARCHAEOLOGIST,
BROMOCHLORODIFLUOROMETHANE, HYDROCHLOROFLUOROCARBON, PHOTOGEOMORPHOLOGY,
COOSCOOSOO (OED2), KOOSKOOSOO (OED2), and

ROOCOOCOO (a pigeon noise, OED).

P

There are 5 P's in PHOSPHORIBOSYLPYROPHOSPHATE.

There are 4 P's in WHIPPERSNAPPER,
HAPLOPAPPUS, PENTAPOPEMPTIC, POLYAPOPEMPTIC, SNIPPERSNAPPER,
APLOPAPPUS, UPPOPPED (W2),
and UPPROPPED [SOWPODS].
The OED2 has PARAHIPPOCAMPAL, POSTHIPPOCAMPAL, SLIPPERSLAPPER, STIFFUPPERLIPPISHNESS, and SUPRAOPTICOHYPOPHYSIAL.

Q

There are 4 Q’s in QAWIQSAQQ (an Alaskan bluff).

There are 3 Q's in QARAQALPAQ (W3),

QUINQUESQUAMATA (a species of rubberweed plant of southwest USA),
QAQAQ (an insular hill surrounded by glacial ice in Greenland, Word Ways),
QUATTUORQUINQUAGINTILLION (a name for 10¹⁶⁵ in the American system), and
QUINQUINQUAGINTILLION (10¹⁶⁸).
Allowing proper nouns, the following place names in Greenland
have 3 Q's: QEQERTARSUAQ, TUTTOQQORTOOQ, QAQORTOQ, QEQERTAQ [1000 miles north of QAQORTOQ], QOOQQUT, and SAQQAQ.

There are also 3 Q's in OQSUQTOOQ (in the Canadian territory of Nunavut).

There are 2 Q's in EQUIVOQUE, QUINQUINA, ALBUQUERQUE,
QUINQUAGESIMA, QUINQUENNIA, QUINQUEREME, QUINQUENNIAL,
QUAQUAVERSAL, QUASQUECENTENNIAL, QUINQUAGENARIAN, QUINQUENNIUM, QUINQUESECTION,
QUISQUILIOUS, QUISQUOS, SESQUIQUADRATE,
QWAQWA (a national state or non-independent black homeland in South Africa),
QUATTUORQUADRAGINTILLION,
QUINQUADRAGINTILLION,
QUINQUAGINTILLION,
QUINQUEVALENT,
and
KANGIQSLINIQ and QAUSUITTUQ (both are places in the Canadian territory of Nunavut).

Bruce D. Wilner points out that HABAKKUK (a book of the Bible) could
be transliterated HABAQQUQ (with 3 Q's). This transliteration
requires qoph to be transliterated Q rather than K; there are two
qophs in the word but the first one has a dagesh which effectively
doubles the consonant.

R

There are 5 R's in FERRIPROTOPORPHYRIN (W3),

REREFERRER, FERROPROTOPORPHYRIN,
and TRANSURETEROURETEROSTOMY.

There are 4 R's in CHIRURGERAR, EXTRACURRICULAR, FURRURER,
SURRENDERER, TERRORIZER, TRANSFERRER, REFERRER,
ARCHTREASURER, ARMOURBEARER, EXTRATERRATORIAL, EXTRATERRESTRIAL, FORESPURRER,
REFRIGERATOR.

S

There are 9 S's in POSSESSIONLESSNESSES (W3).

There are 8 S's in STRESSLESSNESSES.

There are 7 S's in CLASSLESSNESSES,
EXPRESSIONLESSNESSES, POSSESSEDNESSES,
POSSESSIVENESSES, RESISTLESSNESSES,
SENSELESSNESSES, STRESSLESSNESS, and

SUCCESSLESSNESS.

T

There are 6 T's in these OED2 words: UNTITTLETATTLING,
RATTATATTATORY, and TATTARRATTAT.

The rec.puzzles archive shows 6 T's in TETRASUBSTITUTEDEST.

There are 5 T's in TRANSUBSTANTIATIONALIST,
TOTIPOTENTIALITY,

ANTICONSTITUTIONALIST,
ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATE,
THROTTLEBOTTOM [rec.puzz],
YTTROTANTALITE, TETARTOSYSTEMATIC, YTTROTITANITE, and YTTROTUNGSTITE.

U

There are 9 U's in HUMUHUMUNUKUNUKUAPUAA (a triggerfish - RHUD2).

There are 5 U's in UNTUMULTUOUS,
TUGULUSAURUS (Cretaceous dinosaur from China),

URUGUAYSUCHUS (an extinct crocodile from South America),
and PURUSUSAURUS (fossil Amazonian crocodile).

There are 4 U’s in SUCURUJU (anaconda),
SURUCUCU (venomous snake of Guinea),
MUUMUUS (loose Hawaiian dresses) [all SOWPODS],

UNUNUNIUM (a name for Elemennt 111),
UNUNQUADIUM (a name for Element 114),
UNSCRUPULOUS,
USUFRUCTUARY,
and
UNPRESUMPTUOUS.

V

There are 3 V's in VIVISECTIVE, OVOVIVIPAROUS, OVOVIVIPARITY,
VIVIFICATIVE, VULVOVAGINITIS, OVERVIVID [SOWPODS],
OVERCONSERVATIVE, EVVIVA (a shout of applause, OED),
OVERVOLVE (OED2), and
OVERINVOLVED.

W

There are 3 W's in BOWWOW, POWWOW, WILLIWAW,
SWALLOWWORT, NEWWORLDWARD, WATERWAW, and WAYWOODWARE.

X

There are 4 X's in HEXAHYDROXYOXYHEXALEAD (DIC).

There are 3 X's in HEXAHYDROXYCYCLOHEXANE (Random House).

There are 2 X's in XEROX, MAXIXE, PAXWAX, XERXES, EXOTOXIC,
EXOTOXIN, EXECUTRIX, SAXITOXIN, XANTHOXYL,
AXOAXONAL, EXCITOTOXIN, and XANTHOTOXIN.

Y

There are 7 Y's in GLYCYLGLYCYLGLYCYLGLYCINE, which is in DOC,
and a legitimate use of which has been found on the Internet.

There are 5 Y’s in POLYSYNBRACHYDACTYLY (a condition of multiple fused shortened digits - IDMB).

There are 4 Y's in DACRYOCYSTOSYRINGOTOMY (W3),
DIMETHYLAMIDOPHENYLDIMETHYLPYRAZOLONE,
HYDROXYPYRROLIDINECARBOXYLIC,
HYDROXYMETHYLACYLFULVENE,
POLYHYDROXYBUTYRATE, HYPERPOLYSYLLABICALLY,
KYRYMYRY (OED),

and
ACROCEPHALOPOLYSYNDACTYLY.

There are 3 Y's in SYZYGY, HYPOGYNY, POLYGYNY, SYNONYMY,
POLYONYMY, HYPERNYMY, HYPONYMY, HYPOPHYSECTOMY, POLYMYTHY, POLYTYPY, XYLOGLYPHY,

and HYDROXYMETHYLCYTOSINE.

Z

There are 6 Z's in ZENZIZENZIZENZIC (OED2).

There are 4 Z's in RAZZMATAZZ (W3), PIZZAZZ, PAZZAZZ,
and RAZZLEDAZZLE.

---

A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 11

The longest word in any English-language dictionary (from W3)

Last revision: May 26, 2007

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LONG WORDS (ENGLISH)

PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (45 letters; a
lung disease caused by breathing in certain particles) is the longest
word in any English-language dictionary. (It is also spelled
-koniosis.)

On Feb. 23, 1935, the New York Herald-Tribune reported on page
3:

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis succeeded
electrophotomicrographically as the longest word in the English
language recognized by the National Puzzlers' League at the opening
session of the organization's 103d semi-annual meeting held yesterday
at the Hotel New Yorker.

The puzzlers explained that the forty-five-letter word is the name of
a special form of silicosis caused by ultra-microscopic particles of
siliceous volcanic dust.

The word appears in the 1936 Supplement to OED1, the OED2, the
addendum to W2 (spelled -koniosis), W3 (spelled -coniosis), RHUD2,
and Chambers.

The OED2 has:

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (-koniosis), a
factitious word alleged to mean 'a lung disease caused by the
inhalation of very fine silica dust' but occurring chiefly as an
instance of a very long word.

1936 F. Scully Bedside Manna 87
*Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanakoniosis [sic], a disease
caused by ultra-microscopic particles of sandy volcanic dust, might
give even him laryngitis.

1966 Word Study Oct. 7/2 The resources of Greek have
enriched the modern world as well as the ancient one. Perhaps this is
most dramatically illustrated by the longest and most fantastic word
now in an English dictionary (the Merriam-Webster's great Unabridged)
which is forty-five letters in length:
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,..meaning 'a disease of
the lungs caused by extremely small particles of ash and dust'.

1973 R. Megarry Second Miscellany-at-Law 160 It has
been said that 'floccinaucinihilipilification' is the longest word in
the English language... The word's proud title must yield to some
technical terms, such as
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis.

The following appeared in a post in alt.usage.english:

I conjecture that this "word" was coined by word
puzzlers, who then worked assiduously to get it into the major
unabridged dictionaries (perhaps with a wink from the editors?) to
put an end to the endless squabbling about what is the longest word.

[Note: To be precisely correct, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest
vocabulary entry in any English-language dictionary. Stuart Kidd points out that
a longer word actually appears in the OED2, although only as part of a quoted
citation for a different word. It is a 75-letter chemical name with numerous
hyphens, and it is described on page 13 of this web site. Several other citations in the OED2
include multiple words that are "run together" with or without hyphens, forming
"words" of more than 45 letters.]

Karl F. Lingenfelder reports that the domain name
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.com was registered on
October 28, 1999, and that when activated it will point to
http://www.mauigateway.com/~team/longestwordinenglish/ This is a
commercial website selling domain names.

The domain name
Iamtheproudownerofthelongestlongestlongestdomainnameinthisworld.com

may be the longest domain name. In 2005 the web page at this address states,
"This record cannot be broken with a .com domain, because 63 letters is the maximum number of letters that can be registered as a domain name.
Owner of the Longest Domain Name in this World : Dr. Subrahmanyam Karuturi"

TETRAMETHYLDIAMINOBENZHYDRYLPHOSPHINOUS ACID (39 letters in
the first word) appears in the OED2 in a citation for another word;
this word itself is not a vocabulary entry.

HEPATICOCHOLANGIOCHOLECYSTENTEROSTOMIES (39 letters; surgical
creation of a connection between the gall bladder and a hepatic duct
and between the intestine and the gall bladder) is the longest word
in Gould's Medical Dictionary.

FORMALDEHYDETETRAMETHYLAMIDOFLUORIMUM (37 letters) is in the
OED2.

DIMETHYLAMIDOPHENYLDIMETHYLPYRAZOLONE (37 letters) is in the
OED2.

SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS (34 letters) from the movie
Mary Poppins is not the longest word in English, although many
people believe it is. The word is in the OED, which has the
following as the first four citations:

1949 Parker & Young (unpublished song-title)
Supercalafajalistickespialadojus.

1951 Parker & Young (song-title)
Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus; or, The super song.

1964 R. M. & R. B; Sherman (song-title)
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

1967 Decisions U.S. Courts involving Copyright 1965-66 488 The
complaint alleges copyright infringement of plaintiff's song
`Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus' by defendants' song
'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.' (All variants of this tongue
twister will hereinafter be referred to collectively as 'the word'.)

(The definition says Disney won, "in view of earlier oral uses of the
word sworn to in affidavits" and because they wrote the rest of the
song themselves.)

DICHLORODIPHENYLTRICHLOROETHANE (31 letters; usually
abbreviated DDT) is the longest word in the Macquarie Dictionary
and is in the OED2.

PSEUDOPSEUDOHYPOPARATHYROIDISM (30 letters) is defined in the OED2 as "a familial disorder in which the skeletal
and developmental abnormalities of pseudohypoparathyroidism are present without the biochemical
abnormalities common to hypoparathyroidism and pseudohypoparathyroidism"
[Philip Bennett].

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION (29 letters; an estimation of
something as worthless) is the longest word in the first edition of
the Oxford English Dictionary.
The OED2 shows a use of this word in a 1741 letter by
William Shenstone (1714-1763), a British poet and essayist.
It has been used by Sir Walter Scott
and Senators Robert Byrd and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It was used by
Senator Jesse Helms in 1999 during the debate on the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty [Randolph V. Cinco].
It also appeared on March 14, 1996, in "Zippy," a comic strip
distributed by King Features Syndicate:

Do you think I may be too quick to find fault with things and people, Zippy?

Yeh.

Th' 'floccinaucinihilipilification' process.

Th' what?

Floccinaucinihilipilification!! It means 'the estimation of something as valueless'!

You've been randomly reading th' dictionary, haven't you?

Yes. That and my natural tendency toward antifloccinaucinihilipilification!!

Floccinaucinihilipilification was also used by Press Secretary Mike
McCurry in his December 6, 1995, White House Press Briefing in
discussing Congressional Budget Office estimates and assumptions:
"But if you—as a practical matter of estimating the economy, the
difference is not great. There's a little bit of
floccinaucinihilipilification going on here."

The 1992 Guinness Book of World Records calls
floccinaucinihilipilification "the longest real word in the Oxford
English Dictionary," whereas it calls
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis "the longest made-up
word in the Oxford English Dictionary."

The Merriam-Webster website in 2002 stated that floccinaucinihilipilification
"is not in any of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries because our evidence shows us that
it is ... almost always used simply as an example of a long word."

In this word the letter i
occurs nine times, but e, the most commonly used letter in
English, does not occur.

TRINITROPHENYLMETHYLNITRAMINE (29 letters; a type of explosive) is
the longest chemical term in W3.

ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM (28 letters) may be the
best-known long word. The word means "the belief which opposes
removing the tie between church and state."

PARADIMETHYLAMINOBENZALDEHYDE (29 letters) is the name of a
chemical substance and is found on several Internet web pages
[Richard Eisenberger].
Isaac Asimov, in an essay titled "You, Too, Can Speak Gaelic," points
out that the word can be sung to the tune of The Irish Washerwoman, the
best-known Irish jig. The essay is about understanding chemical
nomenclature [Mark Brader].

HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS (27 letters) is the longest word
used by Shakespeare. It appears in Love's Labor's Lost, Act
V, Scene I, and is spoken by Costard:

O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.

I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;

for thou art not so long by the head as

honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier

swallowed than a flap-dragon.

Both W1 and W2, which include every word used by Shakespeare, define
the word as "honorableness" and label it a "pedantic nonsense word."
It is the ablative plural of the Latin contrived
honorificabilitudinitas, which is an extension of honorificabilis
meaning "honorableness." It first occurs in English in 1599, used by
Thomas Nashe. The letters can be rearranged to give "Hi ludi F.
Baconis nati tuiti orbi," meaning, "These plays, F. Bacon's
offspring, are preserved for the world." This fact has been cited by
proponents of the theory that Francis Bacon actually wrote
Shakespeare's plays.

The next-longest words used by Shakespeare are ANTHROPOPHAGINIAN,
INDISTINGUISHABLE, and UNDISTINGUISHABLE (all with 17
letters) and INCOMPREHENSIBLE and NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

(both with 16 letters) [Nelson H. F. Beebe].

INTERNATIONALIZATION (or INTERNATIONALISATION)
has a common abbreviation among
computer people based on its length: I18N or i18n, i.e. there are
18 letters omitted [Mark Brader].

ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHICALLY and
ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATE (27 letters) are the longest words
without spaces or hyphens in MWCD10.

ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATE, HYDROXYDESOXYCORTICOSTERONE,

and OCTAMETHYLPYROPHOSPHORAMIDE (all with 27 letters) are tied
for second-longest chemical term in W3.

METHYLCHLOROISOTHIAZOLINONE (27 letters) is found in Pert Plus
shampoo, according to John Carroll.

ANTITRANSUBSTANTIATIONALIST (27 letters; one who doubts that
consecrated bread and wine actually change into the body and blood of
Christ).

ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETIC ACID (26 letters in the first word)
is in MWCD10. The substance is abbreviated EDTA.

ANHYDROHYDROXYPROGESTERONE (26 letters; a synthetic
crystalline female sex hormone) is the third-longest chemical term in
W3.

CYSTOURETEROPYELONEPHRITIS (26 letters; a combined
inflammation of the urinary bladder, ureters, and kidneys) is a long
medical term mentioned by Paul Hellweg in The Insomniac's
Dictionary.

DISPROPORTIONABLENESS and INCOMPREHENSIBILITIES (21
letters) are described by the 1992 Guinness Book of World
Records as "the longest words in common use."

The LEVATOR LABII SUPERIORIS ALAEQUE NASI is a thin triangular muscle
located on the side of the nose [Charles Turner].

---

PHILIP C. BENNETT’S COMPILATION (2007)

The following two tables showing the longest words occurring on on-line English dictionaries were compiled in March 2007 by
Philip C. Bennett of Belfast, N. Ireland. He provides the following notes:
1. No geographical place names, personal names or product names are listed.
2. No foreign language words, such as German or Greek etc, are listed.
3. Certain nouns, which could have plural extensions added, such as "s"
"es" or "ies", have not been listed. Only when the dictionary displays the
noun with its plural ending is such a word listed.
4. Most of the long words are either chemical or medical in nature, and are
rarely used in everyday speech.
5. No hyphenated words have been listed.
6. No multi-word phrases have been listed.
7. All the words listed do occur in their respective dictionaries; most
times as definitions; sometimes as etymology quotations or citations to
assist the meaning of another word definition.

50 LONGEST WORDS IN ON-LINE DICTIONARIES

1.	PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS	45
2.	TETRAMETHYLDIAMINOBENZHYDRYLPHOSPHINOUS	39
3.	DIMETHYLAMIDOPHENYLDIMETHYLPYRAZOLONE	37
4.	FORMALDEHYDETETRAMETHYLAMIDOFLUORIMUM	37
5.	BUTYLAMINOBENZYLDIMETHYLAMINOETHANOL	36
6.	CHOLANGIOCHOLECYSTOCHOLEDOCHECTOMY	34
7.	METHYLENEDIOXYPHENYLISOPROPYLAMINE	34
8.	SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS	34
9.	DICHLOROBENZYLTRIBUTYLPHOSPHONIUM	33
10.	DIETHYLSULPHONEMETHYLETHYLMETHANE	33
11.	SUPERCALAFAJALISTICKESPEEALADOJUS	33
12.	CONJUNCTIVODACRYOCYSTORHINOSTOMY	32
13.	TETRACHLOROTETRABROMOFLUORESCEIN	32
14.	DICHLORODIPHENYLTRICHLOROETHANE	31
15.	PHENYLDIETHYLHYDRAZONIUMBROMIDE	31
16.	DIMETHYLCYCLOPROPANECARBOXYLIC	30
17.	PSEUDOPSEUDOHYPOPARATHYROIDISM	30
18.	TETRAHYDROPARAMETHOXYQUINOLINE	30
19.	TETRAMETHYLDIAMINOBENZOPHENONE	30
20.	TRINITROPHENYLMETHYLNITRAMINES	30
21.	ALLYLISOPROPYLACETYLCARBAMIDE	29
22.	AMINOBENZENESULPHONYLTHIAZOLE	29
23.	DICHLOROTETRABROMOFLUORESCEIN	29
24.	DIETHYLENETRIAMINEPENTAACETIC	29
25.	FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION	29
26.	METHYLENEDIOXYMETHAMPHETAMINE	29
27.	TETRACHLORODIBENZOPARADIOXINE	29
28.	TETRAETHYLDIAMINOBENZOPHENONE	29
29.	TRIETHYLSULPHONEMETHYLMETHANE	29
30.	TETRAACETYLGALACTOSEPTANOSES	29
31.	TETRACHLORODIBENZOPARADIOXIN	29
32.	TRIFLUOROMETHYLPHENOTHIAZINE	29
33.	TRINITROPHENYLNITRAMINOETHYL	29
34.	AMMONIUMPEROXOCOBALTICOBALTE	28
35.	ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM	28
36.	CAMPHOFORMENEAMINECARBOXYLIC	28
37.	COUNTERIMMUNOELECTROPHORESIS	28
38.	ELECTROPHOTOMICROGRAPHICALLY	28
39.	ESOPHAGOJEJUNOGASTROSTOMOSIS	28
40.	HEPATICOCHOLANGIOGASTROSTOMY	28
41.	HYDROXYPYRROLIDINECARBOXYLIC	28
42.	HYSTEROSALPINGOLOOPHORECTOMY	28
43.	MONOGALACTOSYLDIACYLGLYCEROL	28
44.	OCTAMETHYLCYCLOTETRASILOXANE	28
45.	OCTAMETHYLPYROPHOSPHORAMIDES	28
46.	PHENETHYLFORMAMINYLIMINOUREA	28
47.	PHENOXYACETAMIDOPENICILLANIC	28
48.	PROSTATOSEMINALVESICULECTOMY	28
49.	SPECTROPHOTOFLUOROMETRICALLY	28
50.	TETRAHYDRODICYCLOPENTADIENE	28

---

LONGEST WORDS IN ON-LINE DICTIONARIES, ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED

In the following list, MWUD = Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary;
OED2000+ = Oxford English Dictionary - New 2000+ Edition;
OLMD = The Online Medical Dictionary 2007;
Dorland = Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary 2007;
Weisstein = Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics.

ALLYLISOPROPYLACETYLCARBAMIDE	29	OED2000+
AMINOBENZENESULPHONYLTHIAZOLE	29	OED2000+
AMMONIUMPEROXOCOBALTICOBALTE	28	OED2000+
ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM	28	Dictionary.com
ALKYLDIMETHYLBENZYLAMMONIUM	27	OED2000+
ANHYDROHYDROXYPROGESTERONES	27	MWUD
ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANS	26	OED2000+
ANTIESTABLISHMENTARIANISMS	26	MWUD
AMINONAPHTHOLDISULPHONIC	24	OED2000+
AMINOBENZENESULPHONAMIDE	24	OED2000+
BUTYLAMINOBENZYLDIMETHYLAMINOETHANOL	36	OED2000+
BENZOYLAMINOINDOLYLACRYLIC	26	OED2000+
BROMPHENYLMERCAPTURSAURE	24	OED2000+
BENZYLIDENEACETOPHENONE	23	OED2000+
BETAIMIDAZOLYLETHYLAMIN	23	OED2000+
BLEPHAROSPHINCTERECTOMY	23	Dorland
BENZENEPENTACARBOXYLIC	22	OED2000+
BENZIMIDAZOLECARBAMATE	22	OED2000+
BLEPHAROCONJUNCTIVITIS	22	Dorland
BROMOPHENYLMERCAPTURIC	22	OED2000+
CHOLANGIOCHOLECYSTOCHOLEDOCHECTOMY	34	Dorland
CONJUNCTIVODACRYOCYSTORHINOSTOMY	32	OLMD
CAMPHOFORMENEAMINECARBOXYLIC	28	OED2000+
COUNTERIMMUNOELECTROPHORESIS	28	OED2000+
CHRYSANTHEMUMMONOCARBOXYLIC	27	MWUD
CONJUNCTIVODACRYOCYSTOSTOMY	27	Dorland
CHOLECYSTENTEROANASTOMOSIS	26	Dorland
CHLOROBENZALMALONONITRILE	25	OED2000+
CHLOROVINYLDICHLOROARSINE	25	OED2000+
CHLORODIBENZOPARADIOXIN	23	OED2000+
DIMETHYLAMIDOPHENYLDIMETHYLPYRAZOLONE	37	OED2000+
DICHLOROBENZYLTRIBUTYLPHOSPHONIUM	33	OED2000+
DIETHYLSULPHONEMETHYLETHYLMETHANE	33	OED2000+
DICHLORODIPHENYLTRICHLOROETHANE	31	Dictionary.com
DIMETHYLCYCLOPROPANECARBOXYLIC	30	OED2000+
DICHLOROTETRABROMOFLUORESCEIN	29	OED2000+
DIETHYLENETRIAMINEPENTAACETIC	29	OED2000+
DIPHOSPHOPYRIDINENUCLEOTIDE	27	OED2000+
DIMETHYLALLYLUMBELLIFERONE	26	OED2000+
DIHYDROXYPHENYLETHYLAMINE	25	OED2000+
ELECTROPHOTOMICROGRAPHICALLY	28	OED2000+
ESOPHAGOJEJUNOGASTROSTOMOSIS	28	Dorland
ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHICALLY	27	MWUD
ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATE	27	MWUD
ELECTRONYSTAGMOGRAPHICALLY	26	OED2000+
ETHYLENEBISDITHIOCARBAMATE	26	OED2000+
ETHYLMERCURITHIOSALICYLATE	26	OED2000+
ELECTROCORTICOGRAPHICALLY	25	MWUD
ECHOENCEPHALOGRAPHICALLY	24	OED2000+
ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHICALLY	24	MWUD
FORMALDEHYDETETRAMETHYLAMIDOFLUORIMUM	37	OED2000+
FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION	29	OED2000+
FORMALDEHYDESULFOXYLATES	24	MWUD
FLUOROROENTGENOGRAPHY	21	MWUD
FLUOROHYDROCORTISONE	20	OED2000+
FUMAROYLACETOACETATE	20	OED2000+
FOREHANDIDIFICATION	19	OED2000+
FUMARYLACETOACETATE	19	OED2000+
FURFURYLAMINOPURINE	19	OED2000+
FELICIFICATIVENESS	18	OED2000+
GASTROJEJUNOESOPHAGOSTOMY	25	Dorland
GUANIDINYLSULPHANILAMIDE	24	OED2000+
GLYCYLGLUTAMYLDIGLYCINE	23	OED2000+
GLOBOTETRAOSYLCERAMIDE	22	OED2000+
GLUTAMYLTRANSPEPTIDASE	22	OED2000+
GASTROESOPHAGOSTOMIES	21	OED2000+
GASTROPHILANTHROPISTS	21	OED2000+
GASTRODUODENOSTOMIES	20	MWUD
GLOMERULONEPHRITISES	20	MWUD
GLOMERULONEPHROPATHY	20	OED2000+
HEPATICOCHOLANGIOGASTROSTOMY	28	OED2000+
HYDROXYPYRROLIDINECARBOXYLIC	28	OED2000+
HYSTEROSALPINGOLOOPHORECTOMY	28	Dictionary.com
HEPATOCHOLANGIODUODENOSTOMY	27	Dorland
HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS	27	OED2000+
HYDROXYDEOXYCORTICOSTERONES	27	MWUD
HEXADECYLTRIMETHYLAMMONIUM	26	OED2000+
HYDROXYMERCURIFLUORESCEIN	25	OED2000+
HYDROXYPHENYLPYRAZOLIDINE	25	OED2000+
HYDROCHLOROFLUOROCARBONS	24	MWUD
IMMUNOELECTROPHORETICALLY	25	MWUD
INTERDENOMINISATIONALISM	24	OED2000+
ISOPROPYLCARBAMOYLBENZYL	24	OED2000+
ITAMONOCHLORPYROTARTARIC	24	OED2000+
ICOSIDODECADODECAHEDRON	23	Weisstein
INDISTINGUISHABLENESSES	23	MWUD
INCIRCUMSCRIPTIBLENESS	22	OED2000+
INDIGOTINDISULPHONATES	22	OED2000+
IMMUNOSYMPATHECTOMIZED	22	OED2000+
IMMUNOELECTROPHORESIS	21	Dictionary.com
JURISPRUDENTIALIST	18	OED2000+
JEJUNOJEJUNOSTOMY	17	Dorland
JUNGERMANNIACEOUS	17	MWUD
JURISPRUDENTIALLY	17	Dictionary.com
JUSTIFIABLENESSES	17	MWUD
JUSTITIEOMBUDSMAN	17	OED2000+
JACKASSIFICATION	16	OED2000+
JOLTERHEADEDNESS	16	OED2000+
JOURNALISTICALLY	16	OED2000+
JUXTAPOSITIONING	16	OED2000+
KERATOCONJUNCTIVITISES	22	MWUD
KINEMATOGRAPHICALLY	19	OED2000+
KNOWLEDGEABLENESSES	19	MWUD
KERATOCONJUNCTIVAL	18	OED2000+
KLANGFARBENMELODIE	18	OED2000+
KAKORRHAPHIOPHOBIA	18	MWUD
KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE	18	MWUD
KNOWLEDGEABILITIES	18	MWUD
KALEIDOSCOPICALLY	17	OED2000+
KINAESTHESIOMETER	17	OED2000+
LARYNGOTRACHEOBRONCHOSCOPY	26	Dorland
LARYNGOTRACHEOBRONCHITIS	24	MWUD
LYSOPHOSPHATIDYLCHOLINE	23	MWUD
LYMPHANGIOENDOTHELIOMA	22	MWUD
LEUKOENCEPHALOPATHIES	21	OED2000+
LYMPHANGIOGRAPHICALLY	21	OED2000+
LABYRINTHIBRANCHIATE	20	OED2000+
LABYRINTHINECTOMIZED	20	OED2000+
LITHOCHROMATOGRAPHIC	20	OED2000+
LITHOSTRATIGRAPHICAL	20	OED2000+
METHYLENEDIOXYPHENYLISOPROPYLAMINE	34	OED2000+
METHYLENEDIOXYMETHAMPHETAMINE	29	Dictionary.com
MONOGALACTOSYLDIACYLGLYCEROL	28	OED2000+
MICROSPECTROPHOTOMETRICALLY	27	MWUD
METHYLENEAMINOACETONITRILE	26	OED2000+
METHYLISOPROPYLCYCLOHEXANE	26	OED2000+
METANITROMETACHLOROPHENOL	25	OED2000+
METHANESULFONYLFORTIMICIN	25	OED2000+
METHYLACETYLENECARBOXYLIC	25	OED2000+
METHYLENEDIOXYAMPHETAMINE	25	MWUD
NITROCHLOROANTHRAQUINONES	25	OED2000+
NITROPHENYLTHIOPHOSPHATE	24	OED2000+
NEPHROURETEROCYSTECTOMY	23	Dorland
NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY	23	MWUD
NITROFURFURYLIDENEAMINO	23	OED2000+
NONREPRESENTATIONALISMS	23	MWUD
NUCLEOCOSMOCHRONOLOGIES	23	OED2000+
NAPHTHALENETRISULFONIC	22	MWUD
NEUROPHARMACOLOGICALLY	22	OED2000+
NEXAHYDROHEPTASULPHATE	22	OED2000+
NUCLEOTIDYLTRANSFERASE	22	MWUD
OCTAMETHYLCYCLOTETRASILOXANE	28	OED2000+
OCTAMETHYLPYROPHOSPHORAMIDES	28	MWUD
OESOPHAGOGASTRODUODENOSCOPY	27	OLMD
OLIGODEOXYRIBONUCLEOTIDES	25	MWUD
OVERINTELLECTUALIZATION	23	OED2000+
OMNIREPRESENTATIVENESS	22	OED2000+
ORTHONITROBROMOBENZENE	22	OED2000+
OTORHINOLARYNGOLOGICAL	22	OED2000+
OTORHINOLARYNGOLOGISTS	22	MWUD
OCTOHYDRONAPHTYRIDINE	21	OED2000+
PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS	45	MWUD
PHENYLDIETHYLHYDRAZONIUMBROMIDE	31	OED2000+
PSEUDOPSEUDOHYPOPARATHYROIDISM	30	OED2000+
PHENETHYLFORMAMINYLIMINOUREA	28	OED2000+
PHENOXYACETAMIDOPENICILLANIC	28	OED2000+
PROSTATOSEMINALVESICULECTOMY	28	OLMD
PHENOLPOLYSULFONYLCHLORIDES	27	OED2000+
PHOSPHORIBOSYLPYROPHOSPHATE	27	MWUD
POLYCHLOROTRIFLUOROETHYLENE	27	OED2000+
PHENYLNITROSOHYDROXYLAMINE	26	OED2000+
PNEUMOENCEPHALOGRAPHICALLY	26	MWUD
QUASIRHOMBICUBOCTAHEDRON	24	Weisstein
QUADRISACRAMENTALIST	20	OED2000+
QUARTERMASTERIVENESS	20	OED2000+
QUINOLINECARBOXYLIC	19	OED2000+
QUADRATOMANDIBULAR	18	MWUD
QUADRICOTYLEDONOUS	18	OED2000+
QUADRILINGUALITIES	18	MWUD
QUANTIFICATIONALLY	18	MWUD
QUARTERMASTERSHIPS	18	OED2000+
QUARTZOFELDSPATHIC	18	OED2000+
RADIOCINEANGIOCARDIOGRAPHY	26	OLMD
RADIOELECTROPHYSIOLOGRAPHY	26	OLMD
RADIOIMMUNOELECTROPHORESIS	26	Dorland
RADIOIMMUNOPRECIPITATION	24	MWUD
RHOMBIDODECADODECAHEDRON	24	Weisstein
RHEUMOLYMPHOKERATODITIS	23	OED2000+
ROENTGENKYMOGRAPHICALLY	23	OED2000+
REINSTITUTIONALIZATION	22	OED2000+
RETICULOENDOTHELIOSIS	21	OED2000+
RADIOIMMUNOLOGICALLY	20	OED2000+
SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS	34	OED2000+
SUPERCALAFAJALISTICKESPEEALADOJUS	33	OED2000+
SPECTROPHOTOFLUOROMETRICALLY	28	OED2000+
SPECTROHELIOKINEMATOGRAPHS	26	MWUD
SYNGENESIOTRANSPLANTATIONS	26	MWUD
STEREOENCEPHALOSCOPICALLY	25	OED2000+
STILBENYLOXYALKYLCARBONYL	25	OED2000+
SALICYLAZOSULPHAPYRIDINE	24	OED2000+
SPECTROPHOTOFLUOROMETRIC	24	OED2000+
SULPHADIMETHYLPYRIMIDINE	24	OED2000+
TETRAMETHYLDIAMINOBENZHYDRYLPHOSPHINOUS	39	OED2000+
TETRACHLOROTETRABROMOFLUORESCEIN	32	OED2000+
TETRAHYDROPARAMETHOXYQUINOLINE	30	OED2000+
TETRAMETHYLDIAMINOBENZOPHENONE	30	OED2000+
TRINITROPHENYLMETHYLNITRAMINES	30	MWUD
TETRACHLORODIBENZOPARADIOXINE	29	OED2000+
TETRAETHYLDIAMINOBENZOPHENONE	29	OED2000+
TRIETHYLSULPHONEMETHYLMETHANE	29	OED2000+
TETRAACETYLGALACTOSEPTANOSES	29	OED2000+
TETRACHLORODIBENZOPARADIOXIN	29	OED2000+
URETEROTRIGONOENTEROSTOMY	25	OLMD
UVULOPALATOPHARYNGOPLASTY	25	Dorland
UNDECAMETHYLMALTOTRIOSE	23	OED2000+
UNDISTINGUISHABLENESSES	23	MWUD
UNCONSTITUTIONALITIES	21	MWUD
UNDEMONSTRATIVENESSES	21	MWUD
UNDERCHARACTERIZATION	21	OED2000+
UNEXCEPTIONABLENESSES	21	MWUD
ULTRADOLICHOCEPHALIC	20	OED2000+
ULTRAMICROSCOPICALLY	20	OED2000+
VENTRICULOCISTERNOSTOMIES	23	MWUD
VENTRICULOMASTOIDOSTOMY	23	OLMD
VENTRICULOATRIOSTOMIES	22	MWUD
VERATROYLCINCHOMERONIC	22	OED2000+
VENTRICULOPERITONEAL	20	MWUD
VENTRONUDIBRANCHIATE	20	OED2000+
VICECHANCELLORSHIPPE	20	OED2000+
VICISSITUDINARIOUSLY	20	OED2000+
VECTORCARDIOGRAPHIC	19	MWUD
VELOCIPEDESTRIANISM	19	OED2000+
WHITSUNGILLIFLOWERS	19	OED2000+
WASHINGTONOLOGISTS	18	OED2000+
WEATHERPROOFNESSES	18	MWUD
WIDEAWAKEATIVENESS	18	OED2000+
WITHSTANDINGNESSES	18	MWUD
WARMHEARTEDNESSES	17	MWUD
WARRANTABLENESSES	17	MWUD
WEBERBAUEROCEREUS	17	Wikipedia
WITHDRAWINGNESSES	17	MWUD
WORDSWORTHIANISMS	17	MWUD
XANTHOPURPURINCARBOXYLIC	24	OED2000+
XENYLENEDIHYDROPYRAZINE	23	OED2000+
XIPHOOMPHALOISCHIOPAGUS	23	Dorland
XANTHOERYTHRODERMIA	19	Dorland
XANTHOGRANULOMATOUS	19	OED2000+
XENODOCHEIONOLOGIES	19	MWUD
XENOTRANSPLANTATION	19	OED2000+
XERORADIOGRAPHIES	17	MWUD
XANTHOCREATININE	16	OED2000+
XANTHORHAMNETINE	16	OED2000+
YETNOTWITHSTANDING	18	OED2000+
YANKEEDOODLEDODOM	17	OED2000+
YANGCHUANOSAURUS	16	OED2000+
YANKEEDOODLEISMS	16	OED2000+
YLSULPHANILAMIDE	16	OED2000+
YOUTHSPLOITATION’	16	OED2000+
YELLOWSLOBBERED	15	OED2000+
YESTERDAYNESSES	15	MWUD
YOKOSHIHOGATAME	15	OED2000+
YTTROPYROCHLORE	15	OED2000+
ZYGOMATICOAURICULARIS	21	MWUD
ZYGOMATICOMAXILLARY	19	Dorland
ZENZIZENZIZENZIKES	18	OED2000+
ZOOSPORANGIOPHORES	18	OED2000+
ZOOPHARMACOLOGICAL	18	MWUD
ZYGOMATICOSPHENOID	18	Dorland
ZYGOMATICOTEMPORAL	18	Dorland
ZINCODIETHOXALATE	17	OED2000+
ZOOARCHAEOLOGISTS	17	OED2000+
ZOOGEOGRAPHICALLY	17	MWUD

---

LONG WORDS (OTHER LANGUAGES)

In Spanish, SUPEREXTRAORDINARISIMO is the longest word
according to Guinness 1995. However, the legitimacy of this word is
open to dispute. Nidia Cobiella points out that there are numerous
similarly-formed questionable words, such as superextraordinariamente,
superespectacularisimo, otorrinolaringologistico,
endocrinologicamente, apesadumbradisimamente, descontaminadamente,
requeterequeteacostumbrado, sobreabundantisimamente,
superimaginariamente, superexcelentisimamente,
superpsicoanalisticamente, and desconsideradisimamente.
SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICOESPIALIDOSO (from Mary Poppins) has also
been suggested. The legitimate words OTORRINOLARINGOLOGIA and

OTORRINOLARINGOLOGO could also lead to superotorrinolaringologo
and superotorrinolaringologisimo.
Other suggestions for the longest word in Spanish are
ESTERNOCLEIDOMASTOIDEO (22 letters, a neck muscle),
ANTICONSTITUCIONALMENTE (23 letters, unconstitutionally), and
ELECTROENCEFALOGRAFISTA (23 letters, electroencephalograph technician).

In French, ANTICONSTITUTIONNELLEMENT is the longest official word [Jacques Raymond Kilchoër].

In Lithuanian, NEBEPASIKISKIAKOPUSTELIAUJANCIUOSIUOSE (38 letters) is
possibly the longest word that can be formed according to
legal grammatical rules (so it can't be regarded as completely
coined). It means "in those, of masculine gender, who aren't
gathering wood sorrel by themselves anymore." The meaning is obscure
but possible, e.g. in a fairy tale about hares: "A terrible hunger
arose in the [long word] hares" [Juozas Rimas].

Vilius Puidokas provides
a slightly longer version of this Lithuanian word:
NEBEPRISIKISKIAKOPUSTELIAUJANCIUOSIUOSE (39 letters), meaning
"in those, of masculine gender, who aren't gathering enough wood sorrel
by themselves anymore." He says the fairy tale use could be the same.

Andrius Stasauskas provides an even longer version of the word:
NEBEPRISIKISKIAKOPUSTLAPIAUJANCIUOSIUOSE (40 letters), meaning
"in those, of masculine gender, who aren't gathering enough wood
sorrel's leaves by themselves anymore." He reports that the word will
appear in his upcoming book about the lives of ants, Ridas.
Kankorezis (in English, Rid. The Cone).

In Matsigenka (also spelled Machiguenga),
IRAPUSATINKAATSEMPOKITASANOIGAVETAPAAKEMPAROROKARITYO is the
longest word. It means:
They will probably really go head over heels into the water when they
arrive but not stay that way [Pierre Abbat].

In Portuguese,
INCONSTITUCIONALISSIMAMENTE (27 letters) is the longest word.
It means "very unconstitutionally" [Carlos Andre Branco].

In Croatian, PRIJESTOLONASLIJEDNIKOVICA (26 letters) is a word meaning
"the wife of a heir to the throne" [Vjekoslav Babic].

In Russian, the longest word is RYENTGYENOELYEKTROKARDIOGRAFICHYESKOGO (33
Cyrillic letters, 38 Roman), "of the X-ray
electrocardiographic," according to 1996 Guinness.
According to Ilya Morozov, the longest Russian common noun is
VODOGRYAZETORPHOPARAPHINOLECHENIE (29 Cyrillic, 33 Roman). It means "a medical treatment with
use of water, ooze, peat and paraffin."
Another long Russian word is ZAGIPNOTIZIROVAVSHEMUSYA (22
letters), meaning "to him who has hypnotized himself" [Pierre Abbat].
Regarding this word, Ilya Morozov writes, "This is a verbal adverb,
not a noun. It is very important: in the overwhelming majority of
Russian word-puzzles only nouns can be used. Therefore, most Russian
computer programs for word searching contain only noun lists."

In Turkish, ÇEKOSLOVAKYALILASTIRAMADIKLARIMIZDANMISINIZ (43 letters,
18 syllables) is usually cited as the longest word. It
translates as "are you one of the people whom we couldn't
Czechoslovakianize (i.e. make into a Czechoslovakian)"? However, the
last seven letters are usually printed as a separate word [Edward Sawyer].

The following discussion on long Turkish words is from Fatih Aygün:
In Turkish Çekoslavakyalilastiramadiklarimizdan miymissiniz
(47) is traditonaly cited as the longest Turkish word, but the last 11
letters are written separately. It is counted as a single word because
the separate part is a suffix. The word means "Were you amongst the
ones that we couldn't make a Czechoslovakia citizen?" If we want a word
without spaces, we have Çekoslavakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmissiniz
(44). That means "apparently you were amongst the ones that we couldn't
make a Czechoslovakia citizen." But there are longer place names
than Çekoslavakya.

Afyonkarahisar, a province of Turkey, is the first I came up with.
Afyonkarahisarlilastiramadiklarimizdanmissiniz
(46) has a similar meaning, just replace Czechoslovakia with
Afyonkarahisar. In fact, the conjugation template can be a bit more
complicated. Afyonkarahisarlilastiramayabileceklerimizdenmissiniz
(52) means "apparently you may be amongst the ones that we will not be
able to make a Afyonkarahisar citizen." The longest unconjugated word
in the TDK dictionary (TDK = Turkish Language Foundation, official
regulator of the Turkish language) is elektroansefalografi (20),
which means "electroencephalography." So we can invent a longer conjugated word:
elektroansefalografililestiremeyebileceklerimizdenmissiniz
(58), which means "apparently you may be amongst the ones that we will
not be able to make have an electroencephalography." I systematically
searched the online version of the TDK dictionary and conjugation
suffixes. So I think that a longer word cannot be invented unless a
longer word stem is invented.

NAJNEOBHOSPODAROVAVATELNEJSIEHO (31 letters) is the longest
Slovak word, according to Miroslav Sedivy, who reports it means "of
the less cultivable" (about a field).

According to Jacek Drobnik, the longest real word in Polish, which is neither an intentionally
mounted oddity nor a surname nor a chemical name, is
NAJCHARAKTERYSTYCZNIEJSZEGO, the genitive form of the adjective "the
most characterisitc," meaning "of the most characteristic" (27 letters).

However, according to Michal Marcin Wozniak
the longest word in Polish is
konstantynopolitańczykówianeczka (32 characters). It is
the diminutive of the word "konstantynoplitańczykówianka." The second one means: "an unmarried
daughter of a man living in Constantinople."

According to Martin Vancura, the longest word in Czech officially is nejneobhospodaøovávatelnìj¹ími

(without diacritics nejneobhospodarovavatelnejsimi), which is instrumental case, plural form of "the less cultivable"
(quite similar to the Slovak version above).
A longer word, however is nejnezdevìtadevadesáteronásobitelnìj¹ími (without diacritics nejnezdevetadevadesateronasobitelnejsimi),
the instrumental case of plural of "the less multipliable by ninety nine."
He writes, "Unfortunately, I must confess, the word does not belong among the most used part of Czech vocabulary
but it is absolutely grammaticaly correct and still there are contextual situations where it can be appropriately employed."

According to 1996 Guinness, the longest Dutch word is
KINDERCARNAVALSOPTOCHTVOORBEREIDINGSWERKZAAMHEDEN (49 letters,
preparation activities for a children's carnival
procession," or literally, "for children Carnival procession preparation activities").
ZANDZEEPSODEMINERAALWATERSTEENSTRALEN (37 letters, to "take a hike" or to "p*** off")
appeared in a book by Herman Brusselmans, a (Flemish) Belgian writer, who writes in Dutch.
There is also WAPENSTILSTANDSONDERHANDELINGEN (31 letters, "cease-fire negotions" or "truce negotiations")
[Richard Eisenberger, John Slegers, René Davids].

Philip Bennett writes, "The longest (non-hyphenated) Gaelic word I know of is
BEARRADAIREACHD (15 letters), which means 'clipping, shaving or
pruning.'
The longest (hyphenated) Gaelic word I know of is
CRUIMH-SHIONNACHAIN (18 letters), which is 'a glowworm.'"

According to a reader of this page, the longest word in Malay
(called "Bahasa Melayu" in Malay) may be
DIKETIDAKNYAHCASDIVERSIFIKASIELEKTROSTATIKKAN
(45 letters), which means "has been undiversified of uncharged
electrostatic electricity."
There are also
MENYETIDAKNYAHCASDIVERSIFIKASIELEKTROSTATIKKAN

(46 letters), meaning
"to undiversify uncharged electrostatic electricity" and
PENYETIDAKNYAHCASDIVERSIFIKASIELEKTROSTATIKKAN
(46 letters) meaning, "the process of undiversifiying uncharged electrostatic electricity."

However, the latter two are no longer the widely used spellings.

In Japanese, the longest word is
CHI-N-CHI-KU-RI-N (12 letters) a very short
person (slang), according to 1996 Guinness.
However, Ben Rudiak-Gould writes, "I can't imagine why they'd think this. Right off the top of my head,
BUTSURIGAKUSHA (physicist) is both longer and more commonly used. A look
in the dictionary turned up OSHITSUKEGAMASHIKATTA (was forceful), which
has the added virtue of being a native yamato word (as opposed to a
Chinese loanword). If you're allowed to use implausibly complex verb
conjugations, you can get things like UKETAMAWARASERARETAKATTA ("I wish
I had been allowed to hear of it"). These weren't the result of any kind
of systematic search. A native speaker could probably come up with better
examples."

The 1996 Guinness also has:
"Patent applications sometimes harbor long compound
words. An extreme example is one of 13 kana
(Japanese syllabary), which transliterates to the
40-letter KYUKITSUROHEKIMENFUCHAKUNENRYOSEKISANRYO
meaning 'the accumulated amount of fuel condensed on
the wall face of the air intake
passage.'"

According to Takasugi Shinji, the longest native Japanese word is
ryûgûnootohimenomotoyuinokirihazushi.
Ben Rudiak-Gould writes,
"It's not always clear what constitutes a word in Japanese, but I'm not
convinced this qualifies. It's the name of a plant (eelgrass), and like
other plant names it's often written in katakana, which makes it look like
a single word. But it's really a multi-word phrase, ryuuguu no otohime no
motoyui no kirihazushi, which means something like 'clippings of the
hair-cord of the princess of the Dragon Palace' (said princess being an
ocean-dwelling character from Japanese folklore)."
Takasugi Shinji disagrees with this. He writes,
"A reliable
online Japanese dictionary says it is the longest plant name. A species name is a compound word, not a phrase consisting
of several words, because it cannot be divided or reordered. Grammatically speaking, "forget-me-not" is a single
word, so is "baby's breath." English speakers usually don't treat them as single words just because of hyphenation and spacing."

In Icelandic, the longest word is
HÆSTARÉTTARMÁLAFLUTNINGSMAÐUR (29 letters, "Supreme Court barrister").

In Hungarian, the longest word is
megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért (44 letters),
according to the 1996 Guinness. A translation is
"for your constant mentioning of the fact that [a particular thing] is unprofanable."

Ádám Szegi writes, "Since the publication of the above word, a new invention has been made.
The basic word was modified and extended to another direction, leading to:
legeslegmegszentségteleníttethetetlenebbeiteknek
which means:
"to those of you who can the very least be made profanized."
This may be the current record in Hungarian with its 48 letters.
This is not used in everyday Hungarian, of course. But there is another
snake of word:
változásbejelentésikérelem-benyújtási [kötelezettség] -- 37 letters
which means: [obligation] "of filing an application to register a change" [of address etc.]
This may occur in formal documents (though people usually don't dare to
write down such a long word in one and will probably separate it with some
spaces "to look better"). In theory, according to the orthography, this is a
perfectly correct form, though they advise to possibly paraphrase
expressions like that."

In Mohawk, the longest word is
TKANUHSTASRIHSANUHWE'TSRAAKSAHSRAKARATATTSRAYERI' (50 letters),
"the praising of the evil of the liking of the finding
of the house is right," according to 1996 Guinness.

According to Johan Sydseter, the longest Norwegian word is
Minoritetsbærerdiffusjonskoeffisientsmålingsapparatur (53 letters), "device for measuring
the distance between atoms in crystalised substances."
These Norwegian words have 27 letters:
ARBEIDSTAKERORGANISASJONENE,
KORREKTURLESINGSPROGRAMMENE,
STATSTJENESTEMANNSKARTELLET,
UNDERVISNINGSORGANISASJONER,
and FOLKESUVERENITETSPRINSIPPET.

---

In German, the longest word is
DONAUDAMPFSCHIFFAHRTSELEKTRIZITAETENHAUPTBETRIEBSWERKBAUUNTERBEAMTENGESELLSCHAFT (80 letters),
"the club for subordinate officials of the head office
management of the Danube steamboat electrical services
(name of a pre-war club in Vienna)," according to 1996 Guinness.
According to Barbara Kratzin, in German the word would just have 79 letters, since
ae would be written as Ä.
A reader of this page writes,
"There has been a 'Rechtschreibreform' in Germany recently which has changed the spelling of many words. I believe that
there should be another "f" in Donaudampfschiffahrt.... It is now Donaudampfschifffahrt...."
This word is an agglutinative.

However, Paul Cooper writes,
"The longest German word, quoted as Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitaetenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengessellschaft,
has the statement appended to it, that it can be spelled Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitaetenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengessellschaft
is wrong. The reform of the German language is only accepted by one Dictionary (Duden) and the spelling rules are now
ignored by the government and all major newspapers, therefore the fff is likely to be incorrect."

He also writes, "There is another long word in German, although its real status as a word cannot be correctly confirmed. The word is
"Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaensfrauenverbandsvorsitzendenaufwandsentschaedigungsrahmenordnungsrichtlinienen" 119
and loosely means "The Danube Steam Navigation Company's Captain's wives federation for basic remuneration expenditure guidelines."
It can also be spelled under the new spelling rules as
"Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaensfrauenverbandsvorsitzendenaufwandsentschaedigungsrahmenordnungsrichtlinienen" with 120 letters.

Hwever Peter Wyss writes, "The Danube Steam Navigation Company's Captain's wives federation for basic remuneration expenditure guidelines
can also be spelled under the new spelling rules as
"Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaensfrauenverbandsvorsitzendenaufwandsentschaedigungsrahmenordnungsrichtlinienen" with 120 letters.
The last two letters should not be there. It should say 'Linien' not 'Linienen.'"

Dave Pawson writes:

Actually, Ausserordentlichhochgeschwindigkeitelectronenentwickelndesschwerarbeitsbeigollitron should be Ausserordentlichhochgeschwindigkeitselectronenentwickelndesschwerarbeitsbeigollitron, as the feminine ending -keit takes an -s when in combination form. So Time blew it again, I guess?

I would also point to the game of "Nominalisieren" or "noun-making" which I used to play with my German friends. Players take turns adding a suffix to an ever-growing word, repeating the entire word each time before adding their own part. Players may not modify the previous word except as required by the rules of the German language, ie adding the -s to -keit or -ung endings before proceeding with the next added word. Each play must result in a complete word, for instance:

Papier (paper)

Papierkorb (wastepaper basket)

Papierkorbgesellschaft (waste paper basket company)

Papierkorbgesellchaftspräsident (waste paper basket company president)

Papierkorbgesellchaftspräsidentenbüro (waste paper basket company president's office)

Papierkorbgesellschaftspräsidentenbüroteppich (waste paper basket company president's office carpet)

As you can see, I am already at 45 letters, and could still go on with the waste paper basket company president's office carpet cleaners' uniform dry-cleaning corporation's hanger or some such foolishness. Of course, words such as these would be extremely rarely used and would not be found in any dictionary, but according to the rules of German, would be perfectly valid!

According to Guinness, in German the longest dictionary word in everday usage is
RECHTSSCHUTZVERSICHERUNGSGESELLSCHAFTEN (39 letters),
"insurance companies which provide legal protection."

A reader of this page writes, "There is no real 'longest word' in German, as speakers may make up grammatically correct words when needed."
Steven Van Gemert writes, "I agree with this, and can give a somewhat specific example. When numbers are written in German, the individual words are concatenated together. Thus, the longest word would be the written form of an extremely large number. Considering that numbers can be infinitely large, then the largest word should theoretically have no limit. However, I am unsure as to whether there are even terms coined for such large numbers. For instance, in English you have "million", "billion", "trillion" and "quadrillion" (interpreted differently in America, yes, but all the same). If you were to think of a term to describe a number higher than that (even up to a "Googol" for instance), then I could ask you to name the term that is a thousand times the number you named. Eventually I think we would run out of terms to name the numbers with. Therefore, the longest word in German could theoretically be found with a little research since there would be a finite number of defined terms to describe the numbers. Unless of course you simply use "tausendtausendtausend" to indicate a thousand times a thousand times a thousand and so on. In which case I should like to submit that the longest German word would start with "siebentausendtausendtausendtausend...". :)"

In July 2006 another reader of this page writes:

Unfortunately, I consider some of the claims about the
German language as dubious, at best.

Firstly, anything starting with "Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft"
tells every German, here we have another go at "long word." No one
would take them seriously, and I've seen quite a few longer ones than
the ones you've mentioned.

About the spellig reform in German, thus "Donaudampschiffahrt" vs
"Donaudampfschifffahrt": I have no idea how your correspondent Paul
Cooper came to this conclusion:

"The reform of the German language is only accepted by one
Dictionary (Duden) and the spelling rules are now ignored by the
government and all major newspapers, therefore the fff is likely to be
incorrect."

The reformed spelling is "accepted" by all major dictionaries, and
it is taught for quite a few years now. The old style of writing is
admittedly still used by the major weekly news magazine (Der
Spiegel), the major tabloid (Bild) and the major "regular newspaper"
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). This of course is legal, since
spelling has no legal standing as a law. Still, the government as well
as schools use the reformed spelling. So "fff" should be considered
correct, even if you consider the old spelling the standard.

Even more so, since the rule change responsible for this is one of
only a very few that are actually not opposed by those opposing the new
spelling, but which was acclaimed by all sides to be a very sensible
change (before: when you had three same consonants in a row due to
glueing words together, it would be written with three consonants if
the next letter was a consonant as well "Balletttheater", but only with
two, when the next letter was a vowel "Schiffahrt". Now it's 3 letters
regardless.) and is used this way even by those who oppose the reform
in general.

Then again, "Donaudampfschiffahrts(...)gesellschaft" (please note:
only 1 "s" in "gesellschaft") would be a proper name of a company, to
which normal spelling rules would not apply at all. They could decide
to change their name in such a situation, or to let it stay the same.
If it weren't that all these "Gesellschaften" are entirely fictional.

About German numbers: Those are not formed as claimed on your page.
Up to a million, this is correct: 724537 would be
"Siebenhundertvierundzwanzigtausendfünfhundertsiebenunddreißig" but
millions and higher values are not glued on, but rather separated:
157063724537 would become "Einhundertsiebenundfünfzig Milliarden
dreiundsechzig Millionen
Siebenhundertvierundzwanzigtausendfünfhundertsiebenunddreißig". And
putting "tausend" in any place you like wouldn't work, eeither.

And yes, Germans can form words as long as they like to. So we had
the Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz as
an actually suggested law (see German wikipedia). But we do not like
that too much, the title of the law was changed, though it makes
perfect sense to any German (after some digging through the word, it's
not like we do this every day to this extent): "Law concerning how to
assign the supervisional duties for labelling of beef products".

---

In Swedish, the longest word is
NORDÖSTERSJÖKUSTARTILLERIFLYGSPANINGSSIMULATORANLÄGG-

NINGSMATERIELUNDERHÅLLSUPPFÖLJNINGSSYSTEMDISKUSSIONS-

INLÄGGSFÖRBEREDELSEARBETEN (130 letters),
"preparatory work on the contribution to the discussion
on the maintaining system of support of the material
of the aviation survey simulator device within the
north-east part of the coast artillery of the Baltic,"
according to 1996 Guinness.
Fredrik Viklund found
LÅGTRYCKSKVICKSILVERÅNGURLADDNINGSANORDNING in a
Swedish patent application from approximately 1910-1930. It referred
to what is now called a "lysrör" in common language. It means
"Low pressure quicksilver vapour discharge apparatus."

According to Ville Koskivaara, the longest word in Finnish is
epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkään, which he says means roughly "even with its
quality of not being possible to be made irrational."
Tuomas Rannikko suggests the alternate translation "not even when taking into
account his/her/its way/ability/tendency of not disorganizing."
He also writes, "I have also seen alternative spelling of
epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelläänsäkään, but I cannot discern which is
correct (Or they both might just as well be correct.)
While AFAIK it is the longest non-compound (a single word, not a
word made by concatenating many words together) word in Finnish language it's
not the longest word. Compound words can be longer, and of course medical terms
(which I hardly consider words in any given language, except for medical
language itself) are long and also used throughout the world, regardless of the
language they're wrapped into.
The longest compound Finnish word I can think of right now is
kaksitariffikolmivaihevaihtovirtakilowattituntimittari which is something along
the lines of "dual-tariff tri-stage AC kWh meter"
Then, if one adds a similar ending to the word as with the
epäjärjestelmällistyttää, it would become
kaksitariffikolmivaihevaihtovirtakilowattituntimittarillaansakaan
which is 'not even with his/her/its dual-tariff ...'"

Ville Koskivaara writes, "The spelling epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelläänsäkään
suggested by Tuomas Rannikko is incorrect. One can say a) epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellään
or b) epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsä, but one can never say c)
epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelläänsä. The options a) and b) mean the same thing, option c) does not exist in Finnish."

Charles Turner believes the longest word in
Nahuatl (Aztec) is
MIHUIITTILMOYOCCUITLANTONPICIXOCHITL (37 letters).

According to Fotis Papanicolaou, in Greek, two long words in common use are
SKOULIKOFAGOMIRMIGOTRIPA (an ant eating worm's lair)
and
LEMONOPORTOKALOMANTARINOFLOUDA

(citrus fruit skin).
However, Tsompanidis Vassilis writes,

"These two are made-up words that do not actually mean anything. They are only used as examples of long words. For example
the second one 'means' "skin of a lemon-orange-sanguine.'"

In 1950, Time magazine printed the following suggested correction in
its letters column:

Shouldn't
Ausserordentlichhochgeschwindigkeitelectronenentwickelndesschwerabeitsbeigollitron
[Time, March 13]
read
Ausserordentlichhochgeschwindigkeitelectronenentwickelndesschwerarbeitsbeigollitron?

(Rev.) T.M. Hesburgh

C.S.C.

Notre Dame, Ind.

Time's terse reply:

Yes, as Time's Los Angeles and Philadelphia (but
not Chicago) printers had it.—Ed.

According to Charles Turner, who supplied this information,
Rev. Hesburgh has pointed out the need for an 'r' in the 18th position from the
end of this German "word."

SMILES is supposed to be the longest word in the dictionary
because “there's a mile between the two S's.”

A reader of this page writes, “On that basis, BELEAGUERED is longer as it has a league—which is 3
miles—between the start and end!”

According to Red Skelton, the longest word is the word that follows
the announcement, “And now a word from our sponsor”!

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 12

Last revision: Feb. 12, 2006

---

LONG WORDS - PLACE NAMES

Photo courtesy of Rob Ainsley

LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH
is according to one source the longest placename in the world, with 58
letters. It is a town in North Wales meaning "St. Mary's Church in
the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool of
Llantysilio of the red cave" or "St. Mary's (Church) by the white
aspen over the whirlpool, and St. Tysilio's (Church) by the red cave"
in Welsh.

Rob Ainsley, a reader of this page, writes:

Further to the 'Word Oddities' entry on the small town in
Wales with the long name: the 'real', and official, name of
the place is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, which is how it appears on
maps and road signs. It's also referred to as Llanfair PG,
which is how I've seen letters addressed.

The 19th-century extension of the name is certainly not in
anything like common use, except by tedious English
people like me showing off.

However, what Llanfair PG does have over other long
place-names is that there is a town, in which several shops
and the railway station proudly display the complete long
version of the name. (This is contrast to Taumata... in New
Zealand, which is a hill with no houses or settlements on it.)

My favourite example of a mammoth shop sign is that above
the Volvo concessionaires in the town. Car showrooms are
do not readily put lexical celebration above commercial
realities, but the standard white-on-blue lettering
meticulously spells out
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
I don't know about their letterheads.

There's a joke elsewhere on the web about two people who
stop for lunch and argue about the pronunciation. One asks
the lady behind the counter, "Can you say, very slowly, the
name of the place we're in?", to which the young lady replies
"Burrr, gerrr, kinggg". Sadly - no, fortunately - Llanfair PG is
too small to have a Burger King, McDonald's or any other
fast-food chain.

The bit of the name most people enjoy is the motoric
absurdity of the ending '....go-go-goch'. I'm not a Welsh
speaker, but I believe it comes about as follows. The ending
comes from 'red cave'. This would be 'ogof goch' , but F
seems a weak sound in Welsh and it is swallowed by the
following G. The preceding 'Church of St Tysilio' is 'llan
tysilio', and because the following phrase begins with the O
of 'ogo(f)', a G is inserted to aid pronunciation.

Any cyclists out there may be interested to know that Llanfair
PG is on the Welsh National Cycle Route, Sustrans's
long-distance cycle route from Cardiff in the south to
Holyhead in the north. Taking about a week to do, the route
takes you through some wonderful scenery, some grim
industrial wastes, some delightful little towns, and this
extravagantly named little town.

Apart from photographing the extended name-plates there's
little to do in Llanfair PG, though the historic Menai
suspension Bridge a couple of miles back is worth seeing.

Mark Brader writes, "It occurs to me that this may be the longest word to have ever been
spoken in a movie. In the 1968 SF/comedy film Barbarella, there is
a joke where one character says, as rapidly as possible, 'The password
will be Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch'
and the character he's talking to repeats it back correctly to him
at the same speed."

A website at href="http://llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/">
http://llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/
has more information and claims the village is the longest name in Britain.
It also states:

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk
is often referred to as the longest valid domain name, even though it does not
quite have the full 63 characters allowed. The actual undisputed longest valid domain
name registered in the world also points to this website, and is:

llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochuchaf.org.uk

This has 70 characters (including the org.uk) and is the upper (old) part of the village of
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, more usually locally called "pentre uchaf".
The ending "uchaf" is the welsh for "higher" or "upper", so pentre uchaf means "upper village".

Dale Williams of New Zealand says that the Welsh placename is a
nineteenth-century fabrication, adopted to look good on their railway
place boards, whereas a Maori name for a hill in New Zealand is
genuine and was in general use. It has 85 letters:
TAUMATAWHAKATANGIHANGAKOAUAUOTAMATEATURIPUKAKAPIKI-
MAUNGAHORONUKUPOKAIWHENUAKITANATAHU. Williams says, "If we
want to go there now we call it Taumata." New Zealand broadcaster
Henare Te Ua says the word celebrates the prowess of a great Maori
chief who possessed enormous personal power. Chief Tamatea was so
mighty and powerful that, metaphorically, he could even eat mountains.
There was a gentle side to his personality too. He could play his
nose flute beautifully and quite charmingly to his loved ones. The
word, Henare said, means "The summit of the hill, where Tamatea, who
is known as the land eater, slid down, climbed up and swallowed
mountains, played on his nose flute to his loved one." The hill, about
1000 feet in height, is in Southern Hawke's Bay, a district on the
eastern side of the north island. [Neil Carleton]
[Note: The spelling of this word was corrected on July 4, 2000. Prior
to that date, the "o" preceding "tamatea" was missing. Thanks to
Robert Love for pointing out this error. The word as spelled
above now has 85 letters and agrees with the spelling in the
1992 Guinness Book of Records.]

There is a 66-letter place name in Wales, according to Dr. David
Crystal's Encyclopedia of Language:
GORSAFAWDDACHAIDRAIGODANHEDDOGLEDDOLONPENRHYNAREURDRAETHCEREDIGION,
meaning "the Mawddach station and its dragon teeth at the Northern
Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan bay."

According to The Book of Names by J. N. Hook, the longest place
name in the U. S. may be NUNATHLOOGAGAMIUTBINGOI, the
name of some dunes in Alaska, taken from Eskimo.

However, in Massachusetts, there is Lake
CHARGOGAGOGMANCHARGOGAGOGCHARBUNAGUNGAMOG, usually listed on
maps as "Lake Webster." It supposedly means "You fish on your side,
I'll fish on my side, nobody fish in the middle."

A reader of this page suggests the word is spelled
CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMOGG. Mrs. Byrne's
Dictionary spells the word
CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG.

However, another reader of this page writes: "I live in Dudley, MA,
just west of Webster, MA. and I can verify that the lake is spelled
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchabunagungamaugg by the locals. Also, it
doesn't supposedly mean anything. Nobody knows what it means. the 'i
fish on my side....' or 'Neutral fishing ground' are just common
guesses. From what I've learned, people that have attempted
translations learned that it has nothing to do with fishing at all,
but the 'neutral borders' might be a closer translation, as it's at
the boundary of where a few Indian tribes once lived."

The longest hyphenated placename in the United States appearing
in the Geographic Names Information System is
WINCHESTER-ON-THE-SEVERN (21 letters, in Maryland).
The longest unhyphenated place names are
MOOSELOOKMEGUNTIC (17 letters, in Maine),
KLEINFELTERSVILLE (17 letters, in Pennsylvania), and
WAUGULLEWUTLEKAUH (17 letters, in California). The latter is labeled historical and is
probably the name of an Indian village that disappeared long ago. Some long place names
in the GNIS which include spaces are:
Little Harbor on the Hillsboro, FL;
Pops Hammock Seminole Village, FL;
Friendly Village of Crooked Creek, GA;
Little Diamond Island Landing, ME;
Orchard Point At Piney Orchard, MD;
Point Field Landing on the Severn, MD;
Riverside Village of Church Creek, MD;
Monmouth Heights at Manalapan, NJ;
Staffordville Public Landing, NJ;
Holly View Forest-Highland Park, NC;
The Landing at Plantation Point, SC;
Big Thicket Creekmore Village, TX;
Kinney and Gourlays Improved City Plat, UT;
Little Cottonwood Creek Valley, UT; and
West Virginia Central Junction, WV
[Dan Tilque].

According to The Texas Almanac,
DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS is the longest place name
in Texas. (Dalworthington Gardens is an
island city surrounded by Arlington. The name is
derived from its proximity to Dallas and Ft. Worth)
[Charles Turner].

Dan Tilque writes, "The longest placename I've ever found on a map is INDUSTRIAL CITY OF
GORDON, MURRAY AND WHITFIELD COS (43 letters, in Georgia) which was on the Rand
McNally Road Atlas of 1985. Expanding the abbreviation to COUNTIES

makes it 48 letters long. Unfortunately, this name is now shortened
to just Industrial City."

The longest place names in Canada appear to be
PEKWACHNAMAYKOSKWASKWAYPINWANIK LAKE in Manitoba (31 letters, not counting "lake") and
ILE KUCHISTINIWAMISKAHIKAN in Quebec [Charles Turner].

Philip Bennett says the longest Gaelic place name (hyphenated)
he knows of is
MONADHCHAL-TUATHAIREACH (22 letters).

The longest place-name in the world is the full name for Bangkok, the
capital city of Thailand: KRUNGTHEP MAHANAKHON BOVORN RATANAKOSIN
MAHINTHARAYUTTHAYA MAHADILOKPOP NOPARATRATCHATHANI BURIROM
UDOMRATCHANIVETMAHASATHAN AMORNPIMAN AVATARNS ATHIT
SAKKATHATTIYAVISNUKARMPRASIT, meaning "The land of angels, the
great city (of) immortality, various of devine gems, the great
angelic land unconquerable, land of nine noble gems, the royal city,
the pleasant capital, place of the grand royal palace, forever land
of angels and reincarnated spirits, predestined and created by the
highest Deva(s)." [Stuart Kidd; name taken from Guinness Book of
Records, the meaning taken from
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/1233/bkk.htm]

EL PUEBLO DE NUESTRA SENORA LA REINA DE LOS ANGELES DE
PORCIUNCULA. The name Los Angeles is Spanish for The Angels.
There is much more to this name, however. On Wednesday, August 2,
1769, Father Juan Crespi, a Franciscan priest accompanying the first
European land expedition through California, led by Captain Fernando
Rivera Y Moncado, described in his journal a "beautiful river from
the northwest" located at "34 degrees 10 minutes." They named the
river Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de la Porciúncula. In
the Franciscan calendar, August 2 was the day of the celebration of
the feast of the Perdono at the tiny Assisi chapel of St. Francis of
Assisi. Early in St. Francis' life, the Benedictines had given him
this tiny chapel for his use near Assisi. The chapel, ruined and in
need of repair, was located on what the Italians called a porziuncola
or "very small parcel of land." Painted on the wall behind the altar
was a fresco of the Virgin Mary surrounded by angels. Now contained
within a Basilica, the chapel was named Saint Mary of the Angels at
the Little Portion. The newly discovered "beautiful river" was named
in honor of this celebration and this chapel. In 1781, a new
settlement was established along that river. The settlement came to
be known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de
Porciúncula or The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of
the Little Portion although its official name was simply El Pueblo
de la Reina de Los Angeles [from
http://www.losangelesalmanac.com/topics/History/hi03a.htm] The full
name of Los Angeles, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los
Angeles de Porciúncula, can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its
size: L.A. [Stuart Kidd].

The shortest placenames in the U. S. may be L (a lake in
Nebraska) and T (a gulch in Colorado), each named for its
shape, and D (a river in Oregon flowing from Devil's Lake to
the Ocean near Lincoln City). According to Stuart Kidd,
Y is a city in Arkansas and E is a river in Perthshire, Scotland.
According to Howard Lewis, the D River
is the shortest river in the world. There are villages called

Å in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, a
Y in France, and U in the Pacific Caroline Islands.
The only one-letter placename in the index of the Rand McNally
International Atlas is A, a peak in Hong Kong
(although the Atlas shows political units named with Roman numerals).

MAINE is the only name of a state of the United States
consisting of only one syllable.

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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 16

Last revision: June 30, 2007

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SOME NAMES THAT BECAME WORDS

Here are a few words that are derived from names of people.
A comprehensive listing of scientific units of measurement, which are generally
not included here, is at

http://www.geocities.com/maineiac_bibliophage/people.html.
This list consists of widely-used words
which are not obviously named for people. Stuart Kidd, Charles Turner, Philip Bennett, and James Landau contributed to this section.

WORD	NAMED FOR
ABELIA	Clark Abel (1780-1826), British botanist
ADAMSITE	Roger Adams (1889-1971), American chemist
ALDRIN	Kurt Alder (1902-1958), American chemist
ALEXANDRINE	Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), King of Macedonia
ALEXANDRITE	Alexander I of Russia (1777-1825)
ALGORITHM	al-Khowarizmi (c800 - c850), Arab mathematician
AMISH	probably for Jakob Amman, 17th century Swiss Mennonite bishop
AUGUST	Augustus Caesar (63 B.C. - A. D. 14)
AXEL	Axel Paulsen (1856-1938), Norwegian figure skater
BACITRACIN	Margaret Tracy (ca. 1936- ), child in whose tissues it was found
BAKELITE	Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863-1944), Belgian-born American chemist
BAUD	J. M. E. Baudot (1845-1903), French inventor
BÉCHAMEL SAUCE	Marquis Louis de Béchamel (d.1703), steward of Louis XIV of France
BEEF STROGANOFF	Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganoff (1772-1817), Russian diplomat
BEGONIA	Michel Bégon (1638-1710), French patron of botany
BIRO	József László Bíró (1899-1985), Hungarian inventor
BLOODY MARY	Mary I Tudor (1516-1558), English queen (probably)
BLOOMER	Amanda Bloomer or Amelia Jenkins Bloomer (1818-1894), American feminist
BOBBY	Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), founder of London police force
BOUGAINVILLEA	Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811), French explorer
BOWDLERIZE	Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), British doctor
BOWIE KNIFE	James Bowie (1796-1836), American pioneer
BOYCOTT	Charles C. Boycott (1832-1897), English land agent
BOYSENBERRY	Rudolph Boysen, American botanist
BRAILLE	Louis Braille (1809-1852), French teacher, writer and musician
BROMELIAD	Olaf Bromelius (1639-1705), Swedish botanist
BROUGHAM	Lord Henry Peter Brougham (1778-1868), British statesman
BUDDLEIA	Adam Buddle (c.1660-1715), English rector and botanist
BUHLWORK	A. C. Boule (1642-1732), French cabinet maker
BUNKUM, BUNK	Col. Edward Buncombe, Revolutionary War hero (see note)
BUNSEN BURNER	Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-99), German chemist
BURKE	William Burke, hanged in 1829
CAESAREAN SECTION	Gaius Julius Caesar, who according to legend was born in this manner (c. 101 - 44 B. C.)
CAESAR SALAD	Cesar Cardini (1896-1956), Tijuana, Mexico restaurateur
CAMELLIA	George Josef Kamel (1661-1706), Moravian Jesuit missionary
CARDIGAN	James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan (1797-1868), British cavalry officer
CASANOVA	Giovanni Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-98), Italian adventurer
CATHERINE WHEEL	St. Catherine of Alexandria (d. ca. 307), Christian martyr
CHATEAUBRIAND	Vicomte Francois Rene De Chateaubriand (1768-1848), French novelist
CLERIHEW	Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956), English writer
CZAR	Gaius Julius Caesar (c. 101 BC - AD 44)
DAHLIA	Anders Dahl (1751-1789), Swedish botanist
DECIBEL	Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)
DERBY	Edward Stanley, 12th earl of Derby, founded the race, 1870
DERRICK	Goodman Derick, a well-known Tyburn hangman, circa 1600
DERRINGER	Henry Deringer (1786-1868), American gunsmith
DIESEL	Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913), German automotive designer
DOBERMAN PINSCHER	Ludwig Dobermann, 19th century German dog breeder
DOILY	Mr. Doyley, a 17th century London draper
DOLOMITE	Deodat de Dolomieu (1750-1801), French geologist
DRACONIAN	Draco, Athenian lawgiver, circa 650 B. C.
DUNCE	John Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308), Scottish theologian (who was actually very smart)
EGGS BENEDICT	Commodore E. C. Benedict (1834-1920), American yachtsman and banker
EPICURE	Epicurus (342?-270 B. C.), Greek philosopher
EUSTACHIAN TUBE	Bartolommeo Eustachio (1524-1574), Italian anatomist
FALLOPIAN TUBE	Gabriel Fallopius (1523-1562), Italian anatomist
FERRIS WHEEL	George Washington Gale Ferris (1859-96), American engineer
FILBERT	Saint Philibert (d. 684), Frankish abbot whose feast day marks the ripening season of the nuts
FORSYTHIA	William Forsyth (1737-1804), British botanist
FRANGIPANI	Marquis Frangipani, 16th century Italian nobleman
FREESIA	Friedrich Heinrich Theodor Freese (d. 1876), German physician
FRISBEE	William Russell Frisbie, pie shop owner in Bridgeport CT
FUCHSIA	Leonard Fuchs (1501-1566), German botanist
GALVANIZE	Luigi Galvani (1739-1798), Italian physiologist
GARDENIA	Alexander Garden (1730-91), Scottish-American botanist
GARIBALDI	Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-82), Italian patriot and soldier
GATLING GUN	Richard J. Gatling (1818-1903), American inventor
GEIGER COUNTER	Hans Geiger (1882-1945), German physicist
GERRYMANDER	Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), Governor of Massachusetts (he pronounced the g as in gray)
GLADSTONE BAG	William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98), British statesman and prime minister
GRAHAM CRACKER	Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), American dietetic reformer
GREENGAGE	Sir William Gage (1777-1864), English botanist
GROG	Old Grog, nickname of Sir Edward Vernon (1684-1757), British admiral
GUILLOTINE	Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814), French physician
GUPPY	Robert J. L. Guppy (1836-1916), British scientist from Trinidad
GUY	Guy Fawkes (1570-1606), British terrorist
HANSOM	Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803-82), English architect
HAVELOCK	Sir Henry Havelock (1795-1857), British general in India
HOBSON’S CHOICE	Thomas Hobson (1544-1631), English liveryman
HOOLIGAN	probably Patrick Hooligan
JACQUARD	Joseph Marie Jacquard, 18th cent. French inventor
JACUZZI	Roy Jacuzzi and Candido Jacuzzi (1903-1986), American inventors
JEREMIAD	Jeremiah, Old Testament prophet
JEROBOAM	Jeroboam, first king of the northern kingdom of Israel
JULY	Gaius Julius Caesar (c. 101 - 44 B. C.)
K RATION	Ancel Keys, American biologist and Defense Dept. researcher
KAISER	Gaius Julius Caesar (c. 101 - 44 B. C.)
KLIEG LIGHT	John H. (1869-1959) and Anton T. Kleigl (1872-1927), American lighting experts
KNICKERBOCKERS	Dietrich Knickerbocker, pseudonym of Washington Irving (1783-1859), American author
LEOTARD	Jules Léotard (1839-70), French acrobat
LEVIS	Levi Strauss (1830-1902), Bavarian immigrant to the USA and clothing merchant
LOBELIA	Matthias de Lobel (1538-1616), Flemish botanist and physician
LOBSTER NEWBURG	Ben Wenberg (see note below)
LOGANBERRY	Judge James H. Logan (1841-1928), horticulturist in California
LUDDITE	Ned Ludd, 18th cent. Leicestershire workman who destroyed machinery (see note below)
LYNCH	Capt. William Lynch (1742-1820), plantation owner in Virginia
MACADAMIA NUT	John Macadam (1827-1865), Australian scientist
MACADAMIZE and MACADAM	John Loudon McAdam (1756-1836), Scottish engineer
MACH	Ernst Mach (1838-1916), Austrian physicist
MACKINTOSH	Charles Macintosh (1766-1843), inventor of the waterproofing process
MAGNOLIA	Pierre Magnol (1638-1715), French botanist
MANSARD	François Mansart (1598-1666), French architect
MARIGOLD	Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus
MARTINET	Col. Jean Martinet, 17th century French drillmaster
MASOCHISM	Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895), Austrian novelist
MASONITE	William H. Mason, American inventor
MAUDLIN	Mary Magdalene, Biblical figure
MAUSOLEUM	Mausolus, 4th century B. C. king of Caria, Asia Minor
MAVERICK	Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803-1870), Texas cattle owner
MELBA TOAST and PEACH MELBA	Dame Nellie Melba (1861-1931), Australian soprano
MENNONITE	Menno Simons (1492-1559), Dutch religious reformer
MESMERIZE	Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), Austrian physician
MICKEY FINN	Michael Finnish, American saloon keeper who allegedly drugged his customers (see note)
MORSE CODE	Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872), American artist and inventor
NAMBY-PAMBY	Nickname of Ambrose Philips (1674-1749), English poet
NICOTINE	Jean Nicot (c. 1530 - 1600), French ambassador to Portugal
ORRERY	Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (1676-1731), for whom one was made
OSCAR	Oscar Pierce, American wheat and fruit grower and uncle of an Academy executive director
PAP SMEAR	George Papanicolaou (1883-1962), American physician
PASTEURIZE	Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), French chemist
PAVLOVA	Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), Russian ballerina
PETER PRINCIPLE	Laurence J. Peter (1919-1990), American (Canadian-born) educator
PLATONIC	Plato (c. 427-347 BC), Greek philosopher
POINSETTIA	Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779-1851), U. S. minister to Mexico
POMPADOUR	Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise De Pompadour (1721-1764), French aristocrat
PRALINE	César de Choiseul, Count Plessis-Praslin (1598-1675), French soldier and diplomat
PULLMAN	George Mortimer Pullman (1831-97), American inventor
PYRRHIC	Pyrrus (c. 318 - 272 B. C.), king of Epirus
QUISLING	Maj. Vidkun Abraham Quisling (1887-1945), pro-Nazi Norwegian leader
RAFFLESIA	Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (1781-1826), British colonial administrator in Indonesia
RAGLAN	Fitzroy James Henry Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788-1855), British field marshall
RASTAFARIAN	Ras Tafari, precoronation name of Haile Selassie (1892-1975), Emperor of Ethiopia
RICKETTSIA	Howard T. Ricketts (1871-1910), American pathologist
ROB ROY	Robert McGregor (1671-1734), Scottish outlaw
RORSCHACH TEST	Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922), Swiss psychiatrist
RITZY	César Ritz (1850-1918), Swiss hotelier
SADISM	Marquis Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (1740-1814), French soldier and novelist
SALISBURY STEAK	James J. Salisbury, 19th century English physician
SALMONELLA	Daniel Elmer Salmon (1850-1914), American veterinarian
SANDWICH	John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-92), English diplomat
SANFORIZED	Sandford Lockwood Cluett (b. 1840), American inventor
SAXHORN	Antoine-Joseph Sax, also known as Adolphe Sax (1814-1894), Belgian inventor
SAXOPHONE	Antoine-Joseph Sax, also known as Adolphe Sax (1814-1894), Belgian inventor
SEQUOIA	Sequoya (c. 1770-1843), Cherokee Indian who invented the Cherokee syllabary
SHRAPNEL	Henry Shrapnel (1761-1842), British army officer
SIDEBURNS	Gen. Ambrose Everett Burnside (1824-1881), Union soldier
SILHOUETTE	Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767), French minister of finance in 1759
SIMONY	Simon Magus, 1st cent. astrologer from Samaria: Acts 8:18-19
SPOONERISM	Rev. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), of New College, Oxford
SOUSAPHONE	John Phillip Sousa (1854-1932), American composer and bandleader
STETSON	John Bauerson Stetson (1830-1906), American hat-maker
TARMAC	John Loudon McAdam (1756-1836), Scottish engineer (the word is short for "tarmacadam")
TATTERSALL	Richard Tattersall (1724-1795), British auctioneer
TAWDRY	St. Audrey (St. Etheldreda, c. 630 - 679), queen of Northumbria
TEDDY BEAR	Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), U. S. president
TEDDY BOY	King Edward VII of Great Britain (1841-1910)
TETRAZZINI	Luisa Tetrazzini (1874-1940), Italian opera singer
THEREMIN	Lev Theremin (1896-1993), Russian engineer
THESPIAN	Thespis, 6th century B. C. Greek poet
TIMOTHY GRASS	Timothy Hanson, 18th century American farmer (probably)
TOMMY GUN	Gen. John Taliaferro Thompson (1860-1940), U. S. soldier
TONTINE	Lorenzo Tonti (1620-1695), Neopolitan banker
TUPPERWARE	Earl Silas Tupper (1907-1983), American landscaper and inventor
UZI	Uziel Gal (1923-2002), Israeli inventor
VALENTINE	Valentine, 3rd century Christian martyr
VERNIER	Pierre Vernier (1580-1637), French mathematician
WELLINGTON BOOT	Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), British soldier and statesman
WISTERIA	Caspar Wistar (1761-1818), American physician
ZEPPELIN	Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917), German general and aeronautical pioneer
ZINNIA	Johann Gottfried Zinn (1727-1759), German botanist

Bunkum, bunk. This word actually comes from the name of Buncombe County, North Carolina; the county
was named in honor of Col. Edward Buncombe, a Revolutionary War hero.
The word originated after the congressman from that county defended an irrelevant speech in Congress by claiming that he was
speaking to Buncombe.

Mickey Finn. According to MWCD11, the term is "probably from Mickey (Michael) Finnish fl1903,
American saloon keeper who allegedly drugged his customers."

The OED On-Line entry includes the following:

< the name of ‘Mickey’ Finn, a Chicago saloon-keeper of the late 19th and early 20th cent.
who was alleged to have drugged and robbed his customers: see J. E. Lighter Hist. Dict. Amer. Slang (1997) II. 549 and the following:

1903 Chicago Daily News 16 Dec. 1/7: The complete defense advanced by ‘Mickey’ Finn,
proprietor of the Lone Star saloon ... described ... as the scene of blood-curdling crimes through the agency of
drugged liquor.

1903 Inter-Ocean (Chicago) 17 Dec. 1 (heading), Lone Star Saloon loses its license. ‘Mickey’ Finn's alleged

‘knock-out drops’ ... put him out of business.

Lobster Newburg. According to Dictionary of Words and
Phrases by William and Mary Morris, the term is named for Ben
Wenberg, a West Indies ship captain who came up with this dish by
adding the ingredient cayenne to his famous recipe at Delmonico's
Hotel. As the story goes, Mr. Wenberg had a falling out with the
hotel owner, who, as revenge, reversed the first three letters of a
dish which had previously been called Lobster Wenberg; hence,
"Lobster Newberg." [Jim Lizzi]

Hooker. It seems to be widely believed that the term

hooker is derived from the name of Civil War General Joseph
Hooker. However, dictionaries indicate that the word has the same
derivation as hooker in the sense of "one that hooks," and in
fact the OED2 shows a use of the term in 1845 in N. E. Eliason,
Tarheel Talk: "If he comes by way of Norfolk he will find any
number of pretty Hookers in the Brick row not far from French's
hotel."

Crapper. This word is widely believed to have come from the
name of a Thomas Crapper. However, the word apparently derives from
the word crap, which is found in middle English.

Condom. It is said that the device was invented by a Dr.
Condom. However, most dictionaries have "origin unknown." The OED2
has: "Origin unknown; no 18th-cent. physician named Condom or Conton
has been traced though a doctor so named is often said to be the
inventor of the sheath."

Luddite. MWCD10 has "perhaps" on the origin of this
word in the above table.

Rafflesia. Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles said that
that the world's largest flower, Rafflesia arnoldii,

named after him, "has blooms a yard wide, weighs as
much as twenty-four pounds, and has a memorably
horrible smell." Sir Thomas Raffles has at least two plants named for him, as
Nepenthes rafflesiana is one of the largest species
of carnivorous plants. This pitcher plant from Borneo thrives on the flesh
of a variety of invertebrates and the occasional mouse or frog whose skeletons have been found in the pitchers digestive fluid.
According to Guinness, rats and birds have also been consumed by the Nepenthes rafflesiana pitcher plant.

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