Originally posted to DudleyDanes.com 7/10/2023
Here’s something you may not know about me: I am a master tongue twister-er. I can say “Toy Boat” ten times in rapid succession. I can tell you what a woodchuck would do if said woodchuck was truly capable of chucking wood. I can tie a cherry stem in a knot while the cherry is still on it. I know how to measure out a peck, and I’ve bought seashells directly from Sally. I am that good with my tongue.
Still, no matter how hard I try, I cannot pronounce today’s magic word.
Even the handful of pronunciation guides on YouTube can’t help me with this one. There is a law in physics that requires book worms to mispronounce words that they think they know, but have never actually uttered, but this is outside that law.
This one has it’s own law: Floccinaucinihilipilification is impossible to say.
Since I don’t have a podcast and I am not a television personality, I am still able to post a coherent message about floccinaucinihilipilification without making a complete ass of myself. Alas, Blogging is actually useful for something!
Floccinaucinihilipilification (flok-suh-naw-suh-nuh-hil-uh-pil-uh-fi-KAY-shun): n. The act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant or of having no value. -Wiktionary.com
I humbly confess that floccinaucinihilipilification is not a word you’re likely to need in casual conversation. It is, in fact, most often used as an example of long and obscure words by people who want to wow you with their knowledge. But that’s what makes this word so fun. Listen:
How often do you find yourself in a conversation that you wish you could get out of? You now have a tool with true value–it’s called the Floccinaucinihilipilification Method. See, scarcity and convolution of this beautiful word will always provide the Avada Kedavra to any conversation. Used in a sentence, even mispronounced, floccinaucinihilipilification automatically stuns your opponent, giving you a brief window to walk away unscathed.
Here’s how:
Floccinaucinihilipilification is a noun, but you can use it however you like. Seriously, no one will know. In its proper form, it will usually be preceded with “a” or “the”. Upper management is practically useless–they are a floccinaucinihilipilification that keep the company from turning a profit. If you want to turn it into an adjective, you might say: Her floccinaucinihilipilifarian beauty does not counteract her absolute unlikability. How about as a verb? Dude, you just floccinaucinihilipilificed that shit! As an adverb, He likes to add big words floccinaucinihilipilificarily into conversation just to drive people away.
Floccinaucinihilipilification is truly an Adonis of the lexicon.
Briefly, because I can sense that you will soon want out of THIS conversation, here are those Latin roots: floccus (triviality), naucum (trifle), nihil (nothing), and pilus (hair). These are more synonymous than you might initially realize. Not only do floccus and naucum essentially mean the same thing, but floccus also translates to tuft, as in a tuft of hair, making it pretty damn close to pilus. In the hands of a skilled wordsmith, all four are interchangeable. Look at it this way: Trivial-trifle-nothing-hair (at least two of these roots are floccinaucinihilipilificarious). All can be used to describe something insignificant. So floccinaucinihilipilification means insignificant-insignificant-insignificant-insignificant+act of being (ation). Now that’s magical.
