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Thursday, March 1, 2007

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Here's a random fact. Floccinaucinihilipilification. It's the longest non-technical word in the English language. Its usage has been recorded as far back as 1741. Here's the definition I picked up. Rare. the estimation of something as valueless (encountered mainly as an example of one of the longest words in the English language).

This word actually got me thinking. What's with the long words, man? Who, in this world, did come up with that long, long word? What? They think it's cool or something? I won't ever use this word, and I believe you won't either. I can't even pronounce it, say alone ever know how to spell it. I copy pasted it from a website. Can't they just come up with a 3-4 letter word and give it the same meaning?

And then again, I could never enter the heads of a language expert. There's gotta be tons of reasons why they do what they do. Pakar-pakar Bahasa Malaysia are basiclly doing the same, I suppose. The Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka people have been altering BM for ages. Yesterday you could probably use a certain word and it would make sense and all, then when you wake up the next morning, it's completely irrelevant. Hey, no offence, but they can't even come up a solid NAME for the languauge! Sekali, nama die Bahasa Malaysia, then it was Bahasa Melayu, and now I don't know what. Somebody clear me up on that one. There was a time when you could either combine 'di' with other words or leave it as word of it's own, but now, there's a complete rule of how to use it. They also have this thing to come up with the weirdest names for things. Catch this one: 'gajah menyusu'. It's the corridor with an 'atap' thing that we walk under to prevent from the blazing hot sun. I don't know if you guys know what I'm talking about, but since I can't find an actual definition right now, that's the best I can come up with. There's plenty of other examples, but since I'm not an expert, and I'm not trying to be one, I would not even dare look them up. haha..

Hooray to DBP and all the other language experts out there who make this world such and intersting place to be. You guys ROCK!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the overall champion goes to Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis and the runner up is pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism.

Ahaha!

Anonymous said...

rock?whatt???

Anonymous said...

i was being sarcastic dude

Anonymous said...

if i'm not mistaken, it's "gajah menyusur" not "gajah menyusu"...~

Masita M. said...

no its not 'gajah menyusur'.. i'm pretty sure its 'gajah menyusu'..

Hubab Al Munzir Asmawi said...

yup, that's what i thought. it's menyusu..ingat belajar kat kelas Bm dulu ngn cg. rosfaliza..almost everyone got the word wrong because we thought it was menyusur..

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