The Longest Word - by Nick

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest word in the dictionary I have found so far. I first heard of it when some of the students in my grade at Tong Xin after-school pronounced it really fast in front of me when I was reading, and I found it really, really annoying. I eventually learned that it is some form of a lung disease caused by breathing in fine dust. I have now learned how to say it too! It has exactly 45 letters, can you believe that?! (go to page 1109 in Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language it is the 23^rd entry on the left column).

Technically I found a word online that is 189,819 letters long which is something like methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl……………………………………That is the chemical name of titin the largest known protein. It is gigantic. There is also another word that is 1909 letters long. It’s the longest published word. Even so, I think pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is a really cool word because it is the only one among these 3 words that actually in the dictionary. You should learn how to say it fast, just for fun!

P.S. It is pronounced noo-moh-noh-uhl-truh-mi-kruh-skop-ik-sil-i-koh-vol-cae-noh-koh-nee-oh-sis

Note: when I asked Nick what he was writing about for his journal on Sunday, he pronounced this word - I had no idea what he was saying, I thought he was playing a prank on me. When I checked on his journal, I thought that it was interesting that he chose to write about it.