Talk:Floccinaucinihilipilification

Early contributions
I've added my own pronounciation. Hope it's okay with you, if not just say why and you can take it down. Fin01 18:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I've 'harvested' all these quotes from various sources on the web. Not sure where to draw the copywrite line with quotes from public figures. --justfred

You're fine - you've identified your sources, and press statements have been quoted well within the "fair-usage" and "proper-attribution" guidelines. - Manning Bartlett

... as well as Cliff Claven of Cheers: (found reference but can't find actual quote!) Does anyone know where to source this from?

Where does Sen. Moynahan fit in? Verloren

Should be noted, but he apparently uses it regularly, supposedly Helms learned it from him.--justfred

I removed this section from the article:

Fun

 * What would happen if one were to convert the classic "wood chuck" toungue twister by appropriately changing the words to the correct forms of floccinaucinihilipilification? It might go like this:


 * How many floccinaucinihilipilifications would a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator floccinaucinihilipilificate if a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator could floccinaucinihilipilificate floccinaucinihilipilifications?


 * Why, a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator would floccinaucinihilipilificate as many floccinaucinihilipilifications as a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator could floccinaucinihilipilificate if a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator could floccinaucinihilipilificate floccinaucinihilipilifications.

I want to hit you right now, my tongue is twisted so bad. :p -Alex. 12.220.157.93 12:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh god... I think the alphabet just vomited... 98.232.17.133 (talk) 23:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Possible Consequences of Floccinaucinihilipilification

 * For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
 * For want of the shoe, the horse was lost,
 * For want of the horse, the rider was lost,
 * For want of the rider, the battle was lost,
 * For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost,
 * And all for the want of a horseshoe nail!

For want of a rivet, ... the airplane was lost.

For want of a tile (or tiles), ... the space shuttle was lost.

For want of a species, ... the ecosystem was lost. (See biodiversity.)

For want of a comma, ... the text was misunderstood.

For want of a character, ... the computer program malfunctioned.

For want of a job qualification, ... the job prospect was lost (from the candidate's standpoint) and the job candidate was lost (from the employer's standpoint).

- Thanks to the likes of Geiko their advertising forced me to seek out the meaning and correct spelling of this very ironic term. Never has a spelling bee's use of a term shut me down and have me cracking up at the very idea of a word having so many damn "I's". LMAO But I must admit it was fun to Google!

64.107.1.74 16:50, 29 September 2005 (UTC) Poetess X, Chicago,IL

Quotation marks
The bit about quotation marks in the OED entry is just plain wrong. They are there to mark stress (' for primary, " for secondary). In fact the entry looks like this: "flocci"nauci"nihili"pilifi'cation.

Latin phrase
"I don't make wool" is hyper-literal to the point of being nonsense. I have changed the translation to reflect the fact that facio is so general it really doesn't mean anything on its own, and therfore the idiom really holds little besides its idiomatic meaning. --24.17.30.163 07:17, 19 January 2006 (UTC)#

From looking at the lating words used to make up this word its seems that they are all used to basically describe the same thing. Worthlessness. Therefore it seems to me that this is a manafactured word simply to become the longest word in the dictionary.

Audio pronunciation requested
Please.


 * Done. SergeantBolt 16:54, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Lotsofissues 01:53, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Genitive form?

 * Used in feminine genitive form of floccinaucinihilipilificatrix

Wouldn't the genitive form be floccinaucinihilipilificatrix's?


 * Not in Latin. The "'s" added in English is also a clitic, and not really a true genetive form anymore.  See Genetive --Puellanivis 00:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

German entry
At the moment, there is a German entry, but, as the German Wiks often like to cut any article that isn't "ellenlang," it is up for deletion. Therefore, I haven't linked to it - but if it is still around in a week, the link should be added. Kdammers 23:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

what about Floccinaucinihilipilificatiously? that's 3 letter's longer than the original.

Category:Words (do not create a cat. for long words)
This article has been categorised under Category:Words. There is no category for long words. Do not create one; this has already been discussed at WP:CFD log. Fayenatic london 13:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Alternate spelling
I just added the occurrence from The Way They Learn by Cynthia Tobias. In the book she spells the word as floccipaucinilihilipilification. Should I add "(sic)" after the word?

Also, should there be a place in the article where it lists alternate spellings? 216.197.255.243 22:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean alternative spellings, which is something quite different. Please see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alternate#Adjective and http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=alternate for clarification.203.202.95.141 (talk) 04:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, how's that for a completely useless reply. Alternate and alternative are interchangeable in modern English. If you refute this, go outside for once. 124.176.0.120 (talk) 21:58, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Are you kidding?
I thought wikipedia had *SOME* standards for article inclusion. This needs to be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.1.66.114 (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Why? It's a real word included in Oxford Dictionary, and has been used, as a previous poster has pointed out, in literary novels, and quite a lot of other forms of popular media, if you'll just read the article.  Besides that, I'm sure there are quite a few people who've actually used this word more than once or twice, including myself.  -Dominique (90.202.67.70) (talk) 18:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC))


 * Having said that, WP:WINAD is policy, and this is currently unreferenced.--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 14:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Pronounciation
The word's pronounciation has been totally misrepresented. I've changed it to more accurately respresent the true pronounciation. The original source (dictionary.com) seems to have got it completely wrong, and this is easily infered from a basic understand of its etymology. There's no point adding a source for its pronounciation, however, as no two dictionaries will phoneticize it the same; the only definitive source is perhaps the Oxford dictionary, and that cannot be accessed without membership. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.253.244.103 (talk) 17:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The reason one adds a source is so that someone reading the article knows where to look for verification. It isn't just for convenience, so an OED ref is fine.  --Starwed (talk) 07:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

"Pronunciation", not pronounciation.

"Fact"
Is it really necessary to say that it is the longest word without an "e"? after all, it is THE longest word. Why shouldn't we just say that its the longest word to contain an "f"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.69.21.178 (talk) 03:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't it? The letter 'e' is the most common letter in the English language. For the longest word in the English language to not have the most common letter is pretty amazing. I'm also sure there are other interesting tidbits about the word not discussed elsewhere in the article. Alex (talk) 21:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Bellamy trivia
The fact that a band's lead singer "said this word in an interview" doesn't appear to be of encyclopaedic interest, unless there's some important context for it. Is there? Lots of people say lots of words in interviews, it's not worth documenting all of them. --McGeddon (talk) 21:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

soft redirect to wiktionary entry
Per the {dicdef} tag on this page, I have moved forward with redirect to Wiktionary entry for "floccinaucinihilipilification." No additions were made to expand this into a notable Wikipedia entry, nor do I think that would even be a possibility at this point. The Wiktionary entry contains the definition, etymology, usage, and pronunciation for this word, so no primary information has been lost. If you were an editor to this article in the past and feel your contributions were of relevant importance to the definition of "floccinaucinihilipilification," please visit its page here! ocrasaroon (talk) 03:01, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

longcomment
Can an admin add, per Template:Wi, so to remove this page from Special:ShortPages? 152.3.249.33 (talk) 18:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks! Skier Dude  ( talk ) 19:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 January 2019
75.170.5.193 (talk) 23:53, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Can someone add Category:Long words in this article please? 75.170.5.193 (talk) 23:53, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. - FlightTime  ( open channel ) 23:59, 19 January 2019 (UTC)