Antidisestablishmentarianism

Antidisestablishmentarianism is a hard word to spell. Can you spell it?

That's an old joke, and the proper answer to the question "Can you spell it?" is not "A-N-T-I-D-I-S-E-S-T-A-B-L..." The correct answer is: "I-T".

But I remember how proud I was as a kid when I was able to spell antidisestablishmentarianism (I even practiced it until I could rattle it off without even thinking about it. I still can, just like I can still rattle off the first however many digits of pi that I actually memorized, for no apparent reason besides I wanted to show off my geekiness.

)

Truth is, antidisestablishmentarianism is not a hard word to spell...it is pretty much spelled just the way it sounds. No surprises, no silent letters or odd vowel combinations, just straight forward sound-it-out kind of spelling.

Floccinaucinihilipilification, on the other hand, is a bit more challenging to spell. For that matter, it's no piece of cake to pronounce it either!

Not many elementary students will be going around saying "Floccinaucinihilipilification is a hard word to spell, can you spell it?" Truth of the matter is, there really isn't a standard way to pronounce it; one source I looked at listed four acceptable pronunciations for this behemoth.

So, being able to pronounce these words, that's one thing. Being able to spell them, that's another. But knowing what they mean, now that's a whole other ball of wax.

Antidisestablishmentarianism really is a word, which refers to a group of people in nineteenth century England who wanted the Church of England to remain the state established church. It seems like a roundabout way of saying that, but it really does make sense. The Church of England already was the established church, and there was a party that wanted to disestablish the church. These people were called the Disestablishmentarians. Since the antidisestablishmentarianism camp was opposed to this idea, they became the antidisestablishmentarians, and their stated platform was called Antidisestablishmentarianism.

Floccinaucinihilipilification...now what in the world does that mean? Not much. Not much at all. It means essentially "the act of regarding something as unimportant or worthless." In other words, treating it as "not much at all".

Want to see it used in context? Okay, William Shenstone wrote in his Works In Prose And Verse, "I loved him for nothing so much as his floccinaucinihilipilification of money."

I hope that helped.

Where in the world did this word come from? Well, that's an interesting story...apparently it was invented as a bit of a joke by a college student at Eton College, who created the word by combining four words from his Latin dictionary, all of which meant "not much at all"...

floccus: a wisp of wool (used as part of an idiom that meant "I don't care")
naucum: a trifle
nihilum: nothing, worthless
pilus: a strand of hair

In fact, the word is occasionally written as a hyphenated word as follows: flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication

Knowing this is all well and good, but we're still stuck with the fact that there's no standard pronunciation for this word, which means when we use it in everyday conversation (which happens about as often as our use of antidisestablishmentarianism) no one will know what we're talking about, because they pronounce it differently.

So I propose that we standardize the pronunciation of floccinaucinihilipilification to:

an'tē-dis'u-stab'lish-mun-tār'ē-u-niz'um

That way, I can ask people "Can you spell antidisestablishmentarianism?" and after they've stumbled through all 28 letters I can say "No! It's F-L-O-C-C-I-N-A-U-C-I..."

But first I need to practice spelling it...err...I mean...practice spelling floccinaucinihilipilification.

Posted On Sep 16, 2005 at 3:54 AM

On Sep 16, 2005 Mr. T. wrote: *Thinks that Doug has too much time on his hands*

Doug Replied: don't I wish.

Well, really, what do you expect me to do while I'm drinking my morning coffee and trying to wake up? My revisions on the problems for the Sugarloaf meet? Surely you don't want that!

On Sep 16, 2005 WOW wrote: Gosh, Mr. T. I was agreeing with you two days in a row! Must be a record!

Doug Replied:

On Sep 16, 2005 Beth wrote: What a great way to start the brain juices up. It's like wheaties for the mind

Doug Replied: ah, at last...someone who understands!

On Sep 17, 2005 WOW wrote: Is that sticking out your tongue at me five times??? What happened to your up-bringing?

Doug Replied: Upbringing? Are you kidding?

On Sep 17, 2005 BackStage wrote: I think that WOW ought to get out the scissors...

Doug Replied: whuddyou think I am? Duke?

On Sep 17, 2005 Mr. T wrote: *Thinks that he's glad HE knows better than to stick his tongue out at WOW. . .*

(Of course, if I knew HOW to make that Smiley, I might use it for Doug.)

Doug Replied: colon, P

On Sep 17, 2005 Mr. T wrote: Thanks!

Doug Replied: