Talk:floccinaucinihilipilification

Pronunciation

This isn't how I've always pronounced it. The way I learned is /flQkInQkInIhIlIpIlIfIkeIS@n/ - most of those /I/ can probably be /@/ though.

Also we shouldn't really be forcing fonts on people. I myself have a different font set which is capable of displaying IPA but now this article overrides that.

Maybe we should set some fonts in the default stylesheet somewhere though - I don't know enough about that. — Hippietrail 14:03, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree (mutatis mutandis) on the vowels (part of the appeal of the word is the "rhyme" of flocci-nauci- and nihili-pilifi-) but I think the c's would be pronounced like in an ordinary Latin loanword (/ks/ and /s/). But then, my dictionaries don't deign to list the word, so I can't check.

I agree on the fonts too. My default is Gentium, which is fine, and I think the whole point of the wiki format is not having to worry about setting things like fonts. (Besides, that's what we use (X-)SAMPA for, too.) —Muke Tever 15:52, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The UK pronunciation has two short Is in nihil, unlike nihilism where the first I is long. Is it wrong? Equinox ◑ 18:36, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps a clearer sounding UK pronunciation is to be found here http://howjsay.com/pronunciation-of-floccinaucinihilipilification --216.81.94.73 17:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

floccinaucinihilipilification

I first encountered this word as flocci-PAUCI-nihilipilification when I was eleven and later discovered the alternate spelling floccinaucinihili-PIPI-fication. The former seems plausible: paucity = fewness or lacking, which would seem to fit, but I cannot verify the latter. I love the word for its inherent irony. In forty years of professional writing I have only managed to use the word once, even then it was tongue in cheek. A nearly unusable, sesquipedalian word with three possible spellings and it means, "to assess something as being worthless". Wonderful word!

SShackelSshackel 10:50, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is how I first learned it - in a Guiness Book of World Records, early 1970s edition. In fact, this is the first time I have come across the official spelling abover. As you say, pauci fits the suggest meaning better! Ptilinopus 05:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

This word was used to describe 19th C. explicators of the Old Testament, who found reference to "Christ behind every bush." Hence, floccinaucinihilipilificationist.JamesSutton 20:19, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I first saw the word 'floccinaucinihilipilification' while leafing through the old Oxford dictionary, full 17 volume edition. It appears as a header word, leading one to speculate it was coined for this purpose only, as a humorous blip in a ponderous volume. Oxford defines it as "estimated as being of no value." the word immediately applies to itself as the definition contains fewer characters. Floccinaucinihilipilification is a manifestation of itself. It only barely escapes it's own meaning as an absurd description of an extreme. Zakalwe(Zakalwe (talk) 18:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC))

My non-IPA pronounciation of floccinaucinihilipification

Here it is: flocks-ih-naw-sih-nih-lih-pill-if-ih-kay-shin
Is it accurate? ~ThePCKid 00:09, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I think it's 'flock-see-naw-see-ni-hi-li-pi-li-fi-kay-shun'. Dented42 07:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Quotation

floccinaucinihilipification is used in Timescape by Gregory Benford (1980)

Pmhofman (talk) 09:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

RFV discussion: February–July 2014

This entry has survived Wiktionary's verification process.

Please do not re-nominate for verification without comprehensive reasons for doing so.

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floccinaucinihilipilification

I would like to see this attested in use (WT:CFI#Attestation, item 3; WT:CFI#Conveying meaning). Furthermore, I do no see occurrences of "flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication" as attesting "floccinaucinihilipilification". Searches: google books:"floccinaucinihilipilification", google groups:"floccinaucinihilipilification", “floccinaucinihilipilification”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:37, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I've added four quotations of this spelling used to convey meaning, and there appear to be more on Google Books and Usenet. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 21:51, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Passed. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 01:08, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Longest in Hansard

This edit by User:Oddsausageparty is not correct, but for some reason I am unable to change the page (it says it's locked, but I don't see why for such a minor article).

According to this BBC article, quoting a source from Hansard, they are not going to include Michael Bryan, because it was in a select committee meeting, not considered part of parliamentary proceedings.

81.107.107.248 14:14, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Correct, the meeting in which the word featured is not recorded by Hansard, this should be changed asap. Johna11112 (talk) 07:15, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Etymology and correct dating of origin

Right now the Etymology section says "The word was inspired by a line in the Eton Latin Grammar (published in the early 19th century)", but the earliest usage in examples in the Noun section cites a usage by William Shenstone from 1741 (which can be verified on Google Books here as being from 1741, or at least more likely 1742 when the subject of the quote in Shenstone's letter of eulogy, William Somervile, actually died). So clearly the word cannot have come from T.W.C. Edwards' Eton Latin Grammar of 1826 if the word was also used 85 years earlier in the 1740s. As well the Oxford English Dictionary entry for this word (archived here without paywall) says: "First recorded in 1741, this 29-letter verbal monstrosity was concocted out of four Latin words, flocci, nauci, nihili and pili, meaning ‘at a small price’ or ‘at nothing’. Anyone familiar with the Eton Latin Grammar would have encountered them and been in on, or able to perpetrate, the joke." So it once again cites the Eton Latin Grammar, but says it's attested 85 years earlier, presumably in Shenstone. Even if it's still somewhat unclear how and when the word came about and the relation of its etymology to Edwards' grammar book, surely this entry should be changed to note the word came out well before Edwards' book and before the 19th century? VolatileChemical (talk) 08:43, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@VolatileChemical: The same text appears in Lilies Rules Construed (1659). I do not know whether this is the oldest version. The British Library states that The Eton Latin Grammar “is an adaptation of three early 16th-century treatises by William Lily (1469-1522), a master at St Paul’s school. By the mid-16th century, these had been combined into one work known as ‘Lily’s Grammar’.” J3133 (talk) 11:25, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@J3133: Thanks for the research, that explains things a lot. I looked into it a bit more and I think we can at least solve the mystery of where exactly that particular group and order of Latin words came from. There are several versions of Lily's grammar treatises, published before or shortly after his death, in which he lists "flocci", "nauci", "nihili" and "pili" all together, although not necessarily in that order or in the same line. The earliest example I can find of this is dated 1517, published during Lily's lifetime, in his "Absolutissimus de octo orationis partium libellus", with most of the four keywords interspersed (with what I think are examples or other synonyms): "Nihili vel pro nihilo penditur. Nihili vel pro nihilo habentur literæ. Nauci, flocci, pili, huius non facio." The earliest example in Lily's works I can find of those exact four Latin words in the exact same order as in "floccinaucinihilipilification", is in "A Short Introduction of Grammar" (1608), credited to Lily and John Colet, which has "Flocci, nauci, nihili, pili" on p. 33. As your British Library link notes, Lily's grammar became the standard for Latin grammar textbooks in England almost immediately, and by 1825 when Edwards' is writing his Eton version, he says "By the Eton Latin Grammar is implied merely the abridged Manual of Mr. Lily, which has for many years been successfully empployed at Eton School, to initiate boys in Latin." So clearly the book, or some version of it, was exposed to generations of English schoolchildren going back to at least the 1540s, and possibly used at Eton for just as long. I'm still not sure if there are any usages of "floccinaucinihilipilification" before 1741, but it seems it was certainly possible to have been coined by any student or reader well before the 1740s, perhaps even as early as the 1608. And it may very well have come from Eton schoolboys reading Lily's Grammar, which they may have informally called the "Eton Latin Grammar" if it had been used at Eton for many years, but this was long prior to T.W.C. Edward's 1825 revision actually called "The Eton Latin Grammar". I'm not sure if anyone ever released an edition of Lily's Grammar called "The Eton Latin Grammar" prior to that, although in the article in The Spectator cited in the Etymology section, it says there was a revised version called "The Eton Latin Grammar" as early as 1758. This still would be after Shenstone used it in 1742, and it still doesn't prove it was Etonians who came up with it, or even if they did, it doesn't prove their source would've been known as "The Eton Latin Grammar" at the time instead of "Lily's Grammar" or some variant. And the Spectator piece cites OED anyway, which is one of the sources that offers the unproven claim that it was only through Etonians, and specifically only through a version called "The Eton Latin Grammar", that this noun list was encountered and this compound word invented. However, since apparently several monarchs declared Lily's Grammar to be the only acceptable Latin grammar textbook for English schools, it doesn't seem positive to me that this came out of Eton instead of any of the hundreds of other schools who would've had Lily's grammar assigned. Even though again, it's possible it was Etonians, and it's even possible that Lily's Grammar was called "The Eton Latin Grammar" by some people prior to 1758, but I don't see any proof. In any case, I suggest we amend the Etymology section of this entry to note that #1) the word was attested as early as the 1740s; and #2) that, instead of deriving from the 19th century Eton Latin Grammar, it in fact almost definitely derives from earlier versions of Lily's Grammar, where we can see the famous list of Latin nouns as early as 1608. Whether we remove the fact that it was "apparently by pupils at Eton College", or the fact that it was inspired by a book called "The Eton Latin Grammar" I'm not sure. Those seem like popular, and possible, if unproven assertions. But definitely we should remove the "19th century" part, and in my opinion, also put in the attestation of floccinaucinihilipilification back to 1741. And possibly, we could also say that the line in the textbook said to have inspired the neologism dates back to 1608 at latest. VolatileChemical (talk) 11:27, 19 July 2023 (UTC)