Thursday, September 2, 2010

Say whaaaat??

The book I'm reading at the moment is full of big words. Gi-normous words. To the point where I read it holding the book in my left hand and the dictionary in my right hand. So it was with some amusement that I came across this rather large lexeme the other day...
Polyphloisboiotatotic.
Huh???
According to the Oxford English Dictionary this ridiculously huge expression translates to:
'That roars most loudly of all or very loudly indeed'.
It was once used (probably the only time it was ever used in the history of etymology) in a sentence by William Makepeace Thackeray, when, in 1843 he wrote:
'The line of the shore washed by the poluphlosboiotic, nay, the poluphlosboiotatotic sea.'
Respect.

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