This is a joke. The author is responsible for the opinions expressed in the text.
One of Monty Python’s more difficult sketches is the one that seeks to draw attention to an ancient German composer whose name is too rarely mentioned among the greats. And one reason for this is that his name is so long that most of the sketch’s running time is spent saying it.
The exact spelling is difficult to determine, but the variants circulating on the Internet amount to just over 400 letters. Although I recently discovered that there was a man in the 20th century who had it even worse.
Calling himself Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff Sr., he was a German in the United States whose full name consisted of 26 first names, one for each letter of the alphabet, and a 666-letter last name.
At least in one version. It seems to have grown over the years.
The New Zealander Laurence Watkins, however, does He broke it by simply adding more than 2,200 first names to the ones he got from his parents. One of them is Nils, I notice. He has a six-page appendix with all of his names in his passport and a place in the Guinness Book of Records.
Personally, I would probably consider it a cheat and think the best New Zealand long name is instead the little hill Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. The one that Rupert Hine learned to pronounce so skillfully that it became the rhythmic opening signature of the cult hit “The Lone Ranger” with his 70s band Quantum Jump.
(Although they apparently lengthened the name a bit to fit the music. There’s cheating there too.)
A musical long word that is purely made up But what has still become popular is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, which has magical powers in the film “Mary Poppins”. And what became super opti-pug-top-i-pang-phenomenal in the Swedish version, which Thore Skogman sang.
Without this classic, soul man Isaac Hayes would hardly have called a 1969 song “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” or the rap duo Outkast’s 1994 debut album “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik.” To name just two examples.
At the American demonstrations against the rise of fascism last week, another variant appeared, on one of the signs flashing by on television: “Super-callous-fragile-racist-sexist-Nazi-potus.”
At least you don’t have to wonder who it refers to, since Potus is a common abbreviation for President of the United States.
Read more of Nisse’s stories, such as finding a dealer who can sell a common record player needle.
