What?!!
Floccinaucinihilipilification…
The action of judging something to be worthless.
Back in the eighteenth century, Eton College had a grammar book which listed a set of words from Latin which all meant “of little or no value”. Someone joined these together and put – fication on the end to make a verb for the act of deciding that something has no value at all.
The first recorded use is by William Shenstone in a letter in 1741:
“I loved him for nothing so much as his floccinaucinihilipilification of money.”
Although this is a more romantic use of the word, it is ironic as this is the most suitable way to look at ‘money’ or paper currencies today.
We all need to understand that paper currencies are ultimately worthless.
One by one, we are beginning to look at paper currencies with floccinaucinihilipilification!
The more you learn, the more you will floccinaucinihilipilificate too!
The longest word
Some dictionaries recognise floccinaucinihilipilification as the longest English Word. The 1992 Guinness Book of World Records calls it the longest real word in the Oxford English Dictionary.
They may still recognise it as such, but I haven’t checked as it isn’t important! If you know better, please write!!
In my opinion “Smiles” is the longest word, as there is a ‘mile’ between the first and last letters… Groan!! Sorry for the corny joke!
I’ll use any excuse for a few smiles!
