Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
Karsten:

Just because I am a lousy typist does not mean I can't spell. Trust me this an area NOT to try an challenge me. Can you spell the longest word in the Englis language, it's 45 letters long and is the scientific name for "black lung disease".

Skip

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis! 

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
Karsten:

Just because I am a lousy typist does not mean I can't spell. [...] Englis language

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
Karsten:

Just because I am a lousy typist does not mean I can't spell. Trust me this an area NOT to try an challenge me. Can you spell the longest word in the Englis language, it's 45 letters long and is the scientific name for "black lung disease".

Skip

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "a factitious word alleged to mean 'a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust found in volcanoes' but occurring chiefly as an instance of a very long word." It was coined to serve as the longest English word.

Does not count, sir.

The longest word not deliberately coined with the sole intention of being the longest word is pseudoantidisestablismentarianism (33 letters) - a pretended opposition to the removal of the British monarch as head of the Church of England.

actually this word hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is 36 letters long and means, get ready for this, fear of long words.

-Agrare

According to dictinoary.com, the longest English word is 34 characters.

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
Winter:

I can't address that, I learned it 34 years ago (yes, that means I am too old) along with its meaning. It was valid then and at that time was also in Merriam and Webster's. Who does Oxford think they are to be able to determine the validity of a word for whatever reason it was created, there are new words created almost daily, where is it written that Oxford has the sole authority to sign off on and approve them. I consider Oxford's argument to be specious at best.

If the name of a disease or medical condition is actually a real technical term, one would expect it to be used in the medical literature. The fact that it has never been used in a technical context, and indeed, has never been used outside of lists of long words strongly implies that it has no value as a word in its own right.

And if OED has no authority to claim that a word is or is not valid, then Merriam and Webster certainly do not. Who are they to tell me that it is a real word, absent any real-world usage?