What is the longest word in English?
Surely it's the 'longest word you ever heard' - all together now: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" was immortalized by the Sherman brothers in the Oscar winning musical, Mary Poppins. It is a variation of "supercaliflawjalisticeexpialadoshus" a c ompound word first published in a column published by the Syracuse University Daily Orange in March 1931. The writer, Helen Herman, suggested that the word "implies all that is grand, great, glorious, splendid, superb, wonderful. According to some linguist Richard Lederer, it has some very fancy linguistic roots: super- "above", cali- "beauty", fragilistic- "delicate", expiali- "to atone", and docious- "educable", with the sum of these parts signifying roughly "Atoning for educability through delicate beauty." The Sherman brothers first heard the word at summer camps during 1940s. Incidentally, their working relationship was far