Honorificabilitudinity
GREAT word. It came today in an email from Wordsmith.org
Here is the body of the email that came:
honorificabilitudinity (ON-uh-rif-i-kay-bi-li-too-DIN-i-tee, -tyoo-) noun
Honorableness.
[From Medieval Latin honorificabilitudinitas, from Latin honor.]
Another form of this, honorificabilitudinitatibus (27 letters), is the longest word Shakespeare ever used. It comes out of the mouth of Costard, the clown, in Love's Labour's Lost:
"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."
Note that its spelling alternates consonants and vowels. Some have used an anagram of this word to claim that Francis Bacon was the author of the works attributed to the Bard. Honorificabilitudinitatibus anagrams to the Latin "Hi ludi F. Baconis nati tuiti orbi." which means "These plays, F. Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the world." Of course, that doesn't prove anything -- the word had been used by other writers earlier. And if you torture words enough, they confess to anything. Have fun with anagrams at http://wordsmith.org/anagram
-Anu Garg (gargATwordsmith.org)
"Honorificabilitudinity and the requirements of Scrabble fans dictated
that the New Shorter [Oxford English Dictionary]'s makers be open-minded
enough to include dweeb (a boringly conventional person), droob (an
unprepossessing or contemptible person, esp. a man) and droog (a member
of a gang: a young ruffian)."
Jennifer Fisher; Droobs and Dweebs; U.S. News & World Report (Washington,
DC); Oct 11, 1993.
Anyway, I wanted to remember it, this is a good place to do so, and that's that!
:) adios.
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