English vocabulary question on Quora - Shashi Tharoor and me!

"Can you beat Shashi Tharoor in vocabulary?"

I was asked this question on Quora. Let me share my response to it with you...

Here is what I wrote to Om as my reply....(Enjoy!)


Hi Om!
Thanks for this very intriguing question!

Shashi Tharoor is the one man who makes you reach for the lexicon the most!
He is a language aficionado! He is very good at vocabulary, and is a very senior speaker. So I am sure he is much better than I.

1. He came into limelight with the word ‘farrago’ which then some dictionaries did not have! (Meaning: a confused mixture)

2. He also comes up with good Hinglish terms - a good one is webaqoof (Meaning: One who believes every claim on the social media)



However, there is one word that I had used in my lectures previously and that was -
floccinaucinihilipilification -

“Why on earth did I have to mention this word to innocent students you ask….”

The thing is we were studying vowels, and while on the topic, I mentioned that the most used letter in the English language is ‘E’. One of the students asked me about the longest word without a single ‘E’, and I had taught them this word then which is the longest word in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)

Also then I revealed that there was an experiment conducted by the writer Ernest Wright where he successfully wrote a novel (imagine not a word, not a sentence, but a novel!) without using a single ‘e’ in the book. The name of the Novel is Gadsby. (Year - 1939)

To achieve this he had disabled the ‘E’ button on his typewriter so that he would not even type it accidentally.
What is ironic is that his name begins with ‘E’.



Anyway, I reckon Shashi Tharoor is definitely superior to me!



Let me end by sharing a 45 letter word -
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis -
 (it is respiratory disorder… I surmise the patient will die before the doctor pronounces the malady!)



Hope you enjoyed!
Cheers!