Dec
20
Antidisestablishmentarianism
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Antidisestablishmentarianism is my favorite word. I memorized it when I was a pre-teenager. I liked that it could be broken down into syllables to memorize. Now, some 40 years later, as a 7th grade Language Arts teacher, it really comes in handy when we study root words, prefixes and suffixes. It was one of the answers on Jeopardy the other night, also.
Patricia Koss
Life is just a chair of bowlies.
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7 Responses to “Antidisestablishmentarianism”
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That’s a word that isn’t mentioned these days.
Many years ago I used to create cryptic crosswords and loved using unusual words.
I used antidisestablishmentariasm in one of my jumbo crosswords.
I can send you a copy of the crossword if you’d like.
The first time I heard that word was during the late fifties. It was the answer to the $64,000 question on TV. Some kid spelled it correctly and won the grand prize.
Thanks for the offer, Anne, but they won’t let me do crosswords anymore. The cat hid under the couch for days after the last one.
I can say it 12 times aloud without taking a breath, what about you?
I first heard this in fourth grade I think. A classmate said it I guess to show off, and told us it was the longest word in the English language. I couldn’t look it up then…no internet, but have since and now know what it means. It is the state of being held by antidisestablishmentarians – a group of people against the disestablishment of the Church of England as the state church. Excluding technical words and words like flocinaucihilipilification (to value something worthless), which were made up just to be long, it is still the longest word.
When I was in middle school, one day I decided to ask my teacher what the strangest word she knew was. Antidisestablismentarianism.
A student in my third/fourth grade class used antidisestablishmentarianism as her spelling word one week. It went around the class like wildfire. Other kids tried to use it as well. It helped that they could break it down into smaller words. That’s what a teacher gets when she tells her students they may use the dictionary for inspiration!