Newsletter No. 377

Information in this section can only  be accessed with CWEM password .   若要瀏覽本部分的資料， 請須輸 入 中大校園電子郵件密碼 。 No. 377, 4.5.2011 7 The longest word in English Prof. Chen Tien-chi, CUHK Emeritus Professor, had an illustrious career in the computer science and engineering fields. As with the finest scholars in the CUHK tradition that combines tradition with modernity and brings together China and the West, his erudition has traversed disciplinary and cultural boundaries. Professor Chen’s A Web from Sky to Earth: Quest for Science and the Humanities * is a tour de force in the distinctive general education of CUHK. On page 208, Professor Chen whets the reader’s linguistic curiosity with the question of what the longest word in English is. He begins with two examples: extraterritoriality (19 letters) philoprogenitiveness (20 letters) For a long time the Editor had believed that the longest word in English is antiestablishmentarianism (25 letters). Later, a word meaning judging something to be worthless or trivial appeared and claimed the top spot: floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters) Returning to Professor Chen, he finally recalls his father telling him that the longest word in English is a common easy-going word, neither German nor technical sounding: s mile s (a mile and two letters long) Knowledgeable readers should write in if they know of any English word that exceeds 29 letters or a little over a mile. Editor * 陳天機：《天羅地網：科學與人文的探索》 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2008) More at: www.cuhk.edu.hk/iso/en/features/style-speaks/index.html