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Surely you know that the longest word in the world is 'SMILES' -because there's a mile between the first and last letters! (About the same length as some of Brian's contributions to the blog!)

Ouch, Philip. Seconds away: Round Two. Ding ...

William,
I was thinking more of Mark's sycophantic verbal diarrhoea about the good ol' US of A. Mind you, since a little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men, I suppose we are all guilty of occasional floccinaucinihilipilificatory effusions.

Please note that for words ending in 'fication' the normal adjective is 'atory' not 'ative' as you have put it.

Philip
are my contributions as long as your sermons?

So in the singular does this word tie or exceed antidisestablishmentarianism in length? (Where is my other post on this?) I think it does and I've seen it reported (a long time ago) as the longest word in the English language.

Brian McClinton, I've heard more than enough of of unjustified criticism of my nation, my government, and my society called America Bashing based on viceral hatred from people who don't know what they are talking about and who mouth off regularly at the slightest excuse. I've decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. At least I have lived for a time on their continent and know something about them, their history, and their societies. And to Europeans, what I say is that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. We are not all on our side of the pond ignorant of the world and among those of us who aren't we are not all so sensitive of other peoples' feelings and sensibilities that we are unwilling to tell them directly just a hint of what we say about them among (not amongst) ourselves.

Yesterday, I had the experience of visiting Philadelphia Pennsylvania the birthplace of liberty and freedom and during the several hours I had to kill between meetings went to see Betsy Ross' house. They had a woman who "was" Betsy Ross and I think that what Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson wrote about her and other American women of strength (compared to their weak contemporary counterparts in Europe at the time) in her recent book is true. She lived to 84 years old (blind her last three years) the 8th child of 17, had three husbands two of whom died after only a short time married to her, six children (two of whom died young) and sat and sewed and sat and sewed. And unlike Madam deFarge, what she sowed bore the greatest of fruit, one whose nectar the entire world savors well over 200 years later. It was sobering to think that at the time of her life the actress portrayed, 1778, the British Crown with their Redcoats and Hessians were running America the way the Sudanese are running Darfur today and the war in Ireland had been going on for 200 years already. With or without the French, Americas would have fought to rid themselves of that curse had it taken a thousand years. (Sometimes I wish the French hadn't been so helpful. We never hear the end of it. With Cornwallis' defeat at Yorktown, The American Revolution may have been the last war the French ever actually won.)

Funny, I'm pretty sure Brian taught me that word in school!

But isn't the longest word in the OED pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis?

A lung disease ... though unfortunately sufferers of the condition may not have the puff to pronounce it. (And while the word was , it is still in the dictionary.)

You're right Cheryl. Brian's word is the longest NON TECHNICAL word in the dictionary. Your word is a scientific term.

Will's ending (suffix) for the word is accurate, notwithstanding Brian's protestations!

Gail,
What's your source for the adjective?
I offer you:
'Identification', adjective, ‘identificatory’
'clarification’, adjective ‘clarificatory'
'qualification', adjective ‘qualificatory'
Therefore 'floccinaucinihilipilification',
adjective 'floccinaucinihilipilificatory'

Brian, sometimes there are exceptions to those suffix rules. Google the -ive ending and you'll find lexicography in its support.

Hi Gail,
If you read my earlier posting I did not say that 'ative' was wrong; I merely said that 'atory' was more normal for nouns ending in 'fication'.

If you Google the two adjectives, you will see that both have been used. But neither the Shorter Oxford nor the full Oxford gives an adjectival form of the noun. Therefore, only usage in the end decides. Since the word is rarely used (!), it may take a little while to establish what is 'right'. In the meantime, I suggest that the customary practice for similar ending words should be followed. Not that too many people will lose any sleep over it. Indeed, we may well ask: is debating the adjective from the noun 'floccinaucinihilipilification' in itself a floccinaucinihilipilificatory (or, if you prefer, floccinaucinihilipilificative) exercise?

If you can be an antidisestablishmentarianist, can you also be an antifloccinaucinihilipilificator? I've always thought the UK could use another poltical party. Russia has a beer lover's party. Now that sound's like a reasonable political position to me. Just imagine how much fun their conventions would be...and how many branches would meet regularly at local pubs.

Mark,

The real country which needs another political party is the USA. Americans think they have a real democratic choice between the Democrats and Republicans. But Presidential elections are essentially a contest of wealthy personas (not personalities, which remain concealed behind the personas, despite 10 months of media hype).

Policies? A choice between the tweedledum party and the tweedledee party is hardly a democratic choice between real alternatives. There is a pretence of difference, but in practice it is not worth a hill of beans.

Dare it say it? In many senses, an American presidential election campaign is practically floccinaucinihilipilificatory.