The Funniest Word: Sesquipedalian: Long-Winded
I just learned the strangest word:
An adjective ne’er seen or heard.
Sesquipedalian.
Sesqui-pedal-ian:
Are we the aliens depicted?
Is it us the word has painted?
Latin for a foot plus half**
Which makes me laugh.
“Polysyllabic or long-winded”.**
If there ever was a winding
Longish ended word, it is sesquipedalian.
You have to laugh
At something that’s a ‘foot plus half’
That uses fourteen signs to say it.
‘Sesquipedalian names, or prose’
God only knows how long is wrong,
And even, what is wrong with ‘long’!
Eighteen inches, fourteen letters.
Something in the letters fetters.
Words are born from situations:
Every nuance. each emotion.
How they come about’s the question.
Are we so observant, we,
Disposed to live linguistically?
I’ve no idea,
But it sure is damned funny.
**18 inches or 45.72 centimeters.
The Funniest Word: Sesquipedalian 9.27.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
sesquipedalian | ˌsɛskwɪpɪˈdeɪlɪən |
adjective formal
(of a word) polysyllabic; long: sesquipedalian surnames.
• characterized by long words; long-winded: the sesquipedalian prose of scientific journals.
ORIGIN
mid 17th century: from Latin sesquipedalis ‘a foot and a half long’, from sesqui- (see sesqui-) + pes, ped- ‘foot’.
Arlene Corwin Poetry 