Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaki
en.wikipedia.orgWell this long word breaks HN for me on mobile.
I was wondering wtf was happening...
Needs more word-wrap: break-word.
How many years would you have to live in Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaki to consider yourself a true Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakian? I've known Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakians who don't consider anyone who's lived in Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaki less than ten years a Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakian, but I think that's ridiculous. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaki is a cool place but it doesn't take that long to become a Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakian.
The name "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu" translates roughly as "The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the slider, climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one".
So this hill is more of a run-on sentence than a noun
It's much like some of the long german words which are literally just a series of concatenated words.
I assume that 1000s of years ago german and maori students were struggling to get essays completed under some unreasonably tight word limit. This was their solution, and the subsequently buried the evidence.
The word you're looking for is "compound words". English has a couple too -- i.e. bedtime, nowadays, etc -- but in english it's generally considered poor grammar to invent your own while in languages like dutch and german it's mandatory. That said the longer ones tend to be never used, in dutch "tafeltennistafelfabrikantenvereniging" is a popular example translating to "table tennis table manufacturers meeting", but you'll be hard pressed for a situation where that word is called for!
I always wondered how to actually type out nowadays... all those spellcheckers had me convinced it was now days with a lil mumbling in between.
I think that's a reasonable assumption.
Interesting that it's spelled as a single word. There's another place in NZ with a long name that's fun to visit: Te Whakarewarewatanga O Te Ope Taua A Wahiao which shortens to Whakarewarewa.
The locals there live on an active volcano with steam vents they use for cooking. There are colorful acidic pools all around, and reckless children who will jump off a bridge for thrown coins. The guided tour is charming and fascinating. You'll eventually get used to the smell of brimstone.
There is a link in the explanation for one of the alternate names that when hovered shows a picture of a penis. I did not know wikipedia had this feature, and it is not very office friendly.
This should be in a spelling-bee tie-breaker question.
More bizarre place names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long_place_names
For identifiers this long, I recommend using camelCase.
I knew a maori guy years ago whos name was almost as long as this. He told me it was basically a very short story.
...tanatahu. Not sure why the whole name isn't in the title but there's a bit more to it!
That beats Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg by quite a bit.