448: Long Words Feb 29, 2016

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"Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" is a type of lung disease caused by inhaling ash and dust, and is considered the longest word in English. In German, the longest word is:
"siebenhundertsiebenundsiebzigtausendsiebenhundertsiebenundsiebzig" which is the number 777,777, because German numbers under a million can be compounded. 
Other, polysynthetic languages like Algonquin or Greenlandic can make even longer words easily; the words in those languages can express whole clauses.

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