Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Antidisestablishmentarianism

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why antidisestablishmentarianism is secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Anti-disestablishmentarianism. Known for and famous for being too long. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why the word anti-disestablishmentarianism is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt and I'm not alone because I'm joined by my co-host Katie Golden. Katie, what is your relationship to or opinion of anti-disestablishmentarianism? I'm either for it or against it, depending on what it means. And I can't, there's too many double negatives there. There's anti and disestablish. So there's an anti and a dis and then establishment.

And I don't know. So it seems like it's pro-establishment. And I guess it depends on what kind of establishment that you're being pro-establishment. Because I'm anti-establishment if it's a s***y establishment. So yeah, I'm against it, or maybe I'm for it. Yeah, we're going to start with takeaways to define this. And it is for establishment continuing. And I am really excited listeners picked this. Shout out to JCR dude and shout out to James Amaz for suggesting it. I always found anti-disestablishmentarianism irritating because it's sort of a trivia question about the longest word, theoretically. Yeah, because it seems like you could just say pro-establishment.

And it turns out you can't quite. Oh. But... Damn it. I still find this word annoying and I'm so glad I know why. There's actually a lot here and this is an amazing CIF topic that is fun to learn about, whether you like the word or not or find the trivia fun. I don't know.

I guess some trivia does have that obnoxious flavor of smugness. This is one of them. Anti-disestablishmentarianism is the longest word. Greenland is actually really cold and Iceland is greener than Greenland. It's like, shut up. Shut up. I don't care. Right, just slowly walking away as this is said. And yeah, and it turns out it's not really the longest word. It's a big rabbit

hole and it was really fun. But I think people want to know what it means. So let's get into that. Yeah. Takeaway number one. Anti-disestablishmentarianism is a word for a political and religious position in England. Oh, it's the British again. I should have known. This is someone who is opposed to disestablishing the Church of England. Okay. Because the Church of England is the state religion in the Kingdom of England. Okay, so there are disestablishmentarianists who want to disestablish the Church of England. Is that right? Yeah, and the weird thing about this word is the two negatives on the front, the anti and the dis actually make sense.

Yeah. But the Arianism on the end is kind of overly long. The real word that most people ever use to talk about this is disestablishment. And then they were for disestablishment or against disestablishment. And then people added prefixes and suffixes to pad it out. Yeah. It's kind of like if you're making a fruit basket and you put all that cardboard fluff in it where it's like, look at how full this basket is, but it's all just those little strips of cardboard

that are all crinkly. And then you realize you only have two pears and one piece of chocolate. This is a garbage gift basket, but that's what this word is. Yeah, it's like when there's a briefcase of money and a thriller, but you find out only the top layer is $100 bills and then it's $1 bills or advertisements for strippers or something. You know, it's fake. It's not it.

Yeah. Or Katie bucks. Oh, well those I want. We've discussed them before. They're the most important currency. Fungible. Fungible for fungis. Well, those I want. We've discussed them before. They're the most important currency. Fungible. Fungible for fungis. You can buy fungi with them. Yeah. And so specifically here, anti-disestablishmentarianism is a word that is not debated as far as what

it means. The Church of England, which is also called Anglicanism, the Anglican Church is the state religion in the Kingdom of England. It's also the state religion of the island of Guernsey, the island of Jersey, and the Isle of Man. And then the leading cleric is an archbishop, but then also there's a supreme governor who is the English monarch. So King Charles III is the head of the Church of England because it's tied into the country. The government and the church are one thing. Yeah. Yeah, we used to do that. And we'll never do that again, right? Right, folks?

Yes. We're good. Yeah, we explicitly decided not to do that when we founded the United States. There's not one national church. Yeah. Yeah. This was bad and we didn't, we hated it. It really sucked. And that's, yeah. Anyways. Yeah. And so this English situation helps explain why there's two negative prefixes, right? Why there's an anti and a dis. Right. Because it's already established.

So that's why a group forms to disestablish it. So then the like counter revolution, the group opposed to that is anti dis establishment. Yes, I think I follow it. It's just really, you know, messy and bad and I don't. Sure it's irritating. But yeah. Yeah. I just I don't... Sure, it's irritating, but yeah. Yeah, I just, I don't like the mouth feel. I don't like the texture. I don't like the notes of it.

It's not a good word. It's a, I think we can, can we just all agree it's a very bad word because it's confusing and long and it doesn't sound good. That's how I've always felt. And we'll get into why we're right. But it is like- Sweet, I love that. This is great.

It's, it is an interesting word because it is very clear. It means exactly one thing. Theoretically, you could apply this word to other state religions, but it's really only ever been applied to the Church of England. And then some modern people have goofed around and added it to something else, but it's pretty much just that. So not only is it really cumbersome, it's also just highly specific, which yeah, great word, everyone. Good job. You did it. And a little extra context if people don't know, Christian missionaries come to the Roman province of Britain in like the 300s AD, form

like Christian churches there. And then when Henry VIII is the king more than a thousand years later, he separates England's churches from the Catholic Church and makes himself the head of the church. And so that creates an Anglican church, a Church of England. Right, right. So there's a schizium, another tricky word, because it's got a C in there that always catches me up. Yeah, people love a difficult vocabulary word in Christian histories, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like, ginuflecting. I still don't know what that is and if it's naughty. Probably the least naughty word, right? It's really respectful.

I don't mean to be mean to Catholicism, but ginuflecting sounds pretty naughty. And you're like, no, no, I'm just ginuflecting in here. It's like, okay. Sounds a little dirty, you guys. Maybe it's because just the syllables of it sort of sound like the artist Ginuwine, who made the song Pony, you know? And that's very dirty. So that's probably why. Wow. That's a deep cut.

That's good. Thank you. We rewatched Parks and Recreation recently, Ginuwine cameos, because they like him so much. Anyway. So, yeah. So that's what this word means. Now you know how to use it. Anti-disestablishmentarians want to keep the Church of England as the

state religion of England. Yeah. You could just say pro-Churchies. Yeah. There's so many other ways you can say it, including phrases, right? Not everything has to be one mega word. You can put smaller words together. Ah, I see you're rejecting your German roots, Alex. What do you mean? Everything cannot be fit in one very efficient word, Alex. Yeah, that's another vocabulary word here is agglutination.

Agglutination? Agglutination is when you make one giant word out of a lot of smaller words. I like that word though. Weirdly, the German language is apparently only sort of an example of that. It only does some agglutination and then languages like Finnish and Turkish and Japanese do a lot of it. In ways I don't really understand because I don't speak them, but my sources are clear about this.

I've heard that Finnish is one of the hardest languages to learn just because of how big the words get. Sure. I believe it. It's kind of like you have to do math and language at the same time, which sounds like it sucks. Not to be used to Finland, but I don't want to have to think about both words and math. They're going to come up with a super word to get back at us.

Alex and Katie are dumb, but all one word. But yeah, and all this leads into an immediate next takeaway number two. Anti-disestablishmentarianism is pretty much a fictional word and almost not in the dictionary. Guys! Like people don't actually use this stupid word, really. Come on. Did some nerd just like sit down, write it down, and make it everyone else's problem? What happened? Pretty much. Yeah, we don't have a person to blame, but this word was basically invented as etymology and trivia nerd stuff because people have just used other words for this actual real concept.

I see. So it was never used contemporaneously with actual anti-disestablishmentarianism. So if you were an anti-disestablishmentarianist, you would never use the word, I'm an anti-disestablishmentarianist ever. Yeah. You could say that you're for or against disestablishment. And then also you could say, especially in the 1800s, you supported one or the other British political party's position or supported their leader or the other leader. In English, we tend to use a phrase made of smaller words. We don't mess

around like this. Yeah. Stop messing around with English language. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. I don't mind messing around with the English language at all, but I like it when you come up with words or phrases that are fun and catchy and or introduces a new concept that is useful in a lot of different contexts. Like when kids, when the kids come up with a new word, like Riz, Riz is a great word. Good job, TikTok kids. Like that's great. It's a great word. I love to use it, but this is neither fun nor modular. Like you can't use it in a lot of different contexts, which I think is to me, a word fail. I 100% agree. Yeah. And I hope we've talked about that before, that there's no such thing

as real words or fake words. It's just that language evolves and especially groups of people like young girls will often come up with the next words or black Americans will come up with new words and they're real if we use them. It's just that people invented a really annoying pointless word with anti-disestablishmentarianism. We're not anti-words. We're anti this one particular word. Yeah, it basically just exists for stunts. And then it can describe a real thing if you want it to, because that's clear.

But that's it. Right. So we've made a pointless thing. Great. The biggest evidence for this is that there's almost no record of this being used for anything besides. That's a long word. Even though across the history of the UK and the British Empire for the past 300 years, this has been a big deal.

This political position has been a big deal. And if people use this word, they would be using it. I see. So this is like, it's some kind of word fetishists idea of a good time. Yeah, because we don't use it for its actual purpose. Like, around the mid to late 1700s, people across the British Empire start arguing about disestablishing this church, especially in the 1860s, Ireland, the entire island that's now the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland that was controlled by Britain and they had established an Anglican Church of Ireland

as the state church. Even though very, very, very few Irish people were part of it. Most of them are Catholic to this day. Yeah. Yeah, that was, I don't think religion played a big part though in Irish history. You guys can't see what a little twerp I look like right now, I'm joking. But history, I'm not dismissing that, right? It's an interesting historical concept

because it is a bit of interesting history. But it seems like we know the word as just like, look at that long old word. You know, have you ever read that essay by George Orwell where he talks about the English language and the way that- Long time ago, yeah. Basically talks about the English language and the way that... Long time ago, yeah. Basically talks about the, like a lot of ideas about the way that language has so

much sophistication in terms of being able to, to relay really complicated and interesting concepts, right? And it's not so much about like whether a word is fancy or short or whatever. It's more about like, what, what does the word do? Like, does it make you think, or does it make you react, or does it make you kind of dismiss a concept? And this word, I think is like, because it's such a novelty thing of just like, look how long and complicated this word is.

It kind of has that effect of like, instead of actually thinking about like, Oh, that's interesting. What is that concept? What does that mean? What is the history of that? It seems to be more just like, oh, that's interesting. What is that concept? What does that mean? What is the history of that? It seems to be more just like, wow, that's a big long word. I'm not going to understand it. Moving on. It's like when jargon is used a lot to like obfuscate someone's point where it's like, come on, just use, like if you're communicating to people, what's the point of making it unnecessarily complex or gatekeeping stuff? So yeah, not a fan. All of the British Empire felt the same way.

Apparently in a census in 1861, the British found that just 12% of people in Ireland were Anglicans. There were zero Irish counties with an Anglican majority, and that fed into Irish nationalism. They wanted to be independent. And there was a big rebellion in 1867. And then the British government proceeds to have really an entire election about what do we do about Ireland being upset with us. And one result is that the Liberal Party takes power in 1868 and pushes to disestablish the Anglican Church of Ireland. They'll say, okay, Irish people, this is no longer your state church.

You also don't have to give money to it by law anymore. Because that was part of the problem too. You had to donate to the state church, even though it was not their religion. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah. It's not just a conscience thing. And so William Gladstone is the prime minister. He and his liberal party put through a church act that disestablishes the Anglican Church

in Ireland. This is opposed by Benjamin Disraeli and the conservatives. And everyone uses every word except anti-disestablishmentarianism in this process. Yeah. They just say whether they're for or against disestablishment, for or against the Church Act, Liberal Party or Conservative Party, Gladstone or Disraeli. English has so many other ways to talk about this. Yeah. I mean, also you have limited time on the parliament floor before people start getting impatient and throwing punches and biting. So you you really gotta get what you're gonna say out

before someone hits you over the head with one of those thick wooden chairs. Yeah, also the force of the harumphs from the various benches, you know, that'll knock you down, like the wind. Yeah. So you don't have- Weaponized harumphs. You might get through anti-duh and then you're down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Weaponized harumps. You might get through anti-duh and then you're down. The sound of a hundred mustaches being irritatedly ruffled. Yeah, and in many of the countries where this podcast is popular, the Anglican Church was disestablished in the last couple centuries. A few decades after disestablishing it in Ireland, they disestablished it in Wales. There's churches there but it's not the official Church of Wales. Scotland has a state church but it's Presbyterian, not Anglican. And all of Canada disestablished by the mid 1800s before Confederation. And only a few of the 13 colonies that became

US states had ever established it and then they disestablished after the American Revolution. It's an interesting denomination because it's a very prominent Protestant denomination. Also some people feel that it finds a middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism. It's sort of a big church in the US. It's usually called the Episcopalian Church in the US. Episcopal is a word that means led by bishops, and this is a bishop-led church. That's interesting. I didn't know that Scotland had. Scotland does have a state religion or... It's just called the Church of Scotland, but it's a Protestant denomination called

Presbyterian, which is relatively popular there. My mom's Presbyterian, my dad was Catholic, so I learned a lot about denominations. I was very trained in this as a child. But yeah, so instead of being under an Anglican church inflicted on them by London or wherever, there is a state church of Presbyterianism. What does that look like sort of in the modern era? Do people still have to like pay taxes to this church or is it, you know, it doesn't become more and more secular because I would assume that

it's not as cool these days to have like a, say like a church that you pay taxes to, and then it tells you to like stop having fun. Yeah, it's very secular and centuries ago, people would have to actively tithe like a significant percentage of income to these churches. A lot of the debate over disestablishing it is tied into whether to end the British monarchy.

Cause that's kind of the bigger pot of money that's coming from taxpayers into an old institution at this point. I see. Yeah. And then in England, that's the head of the church too. So it's all one thing. Right. Right. What you guys should do is instead have a mascot that you still like bow to and stuff, but it could be cool. Like King Badger or something. And it's like a fluffy Badger with a crown and dances. And the cool thing about that is like, you could take photos with them.

You could sell like King Badger merch and stuff. I think it'd be really cool. Cause then you could still like technically have like a King. You could switch it off to like queen badger, you know, some years, king badger, prince bad, whatever, a whole badger family. And I don't know why I picked badgers, but that seems very British to me for some reason,

cause I'm thinking of wind in the willows. And so, you know, just a, but like a mascot. So you could still have the fun parties and like, still have jewels, right? But it would be a big mascot badger wearing them. And then the money would go towards badger conservation. I feel like that's just so much more popular than Charles in every way. Sorry, Charles. It's just tough. You can't beat a badger. It's not your fault even.

Yeah, you really can't. Yeah. So for all the reasons, there's just so many other ways to use the English language to talk about this actual meaningful issue. Which means the next question is why does this word exist? It was invented by people who are nerds about both history and language and trivia. So three things. Nerds! This is so invented, it's not in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Wow. Our two big dictionary sources this week, because they also have digital resources about the word, are Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary.

Merriam-Webster is kind of more American and Oxford English Dictionary is English. In Merriam-Webster, they do not include this word. They say that in more than a century of records of English language writing, they only found three uses of it. And they don't use it sincerely. They use it as like long word stuff. Right. Okay.

So it's just for word perverts. Got it. Pretty much. Yeah. Knock it off. Merriam-Webster says that among their standards for something to be in the dictionary, those are widespread use, sustained use, and meaningful use. This is not used in a widespread way or a sustained way or a meaningful way.

So it's not in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Again, I'm very much pro the youth coming up with cool words and using them until we start using them and then it's not cool anymore. Yeah, that rizes me when they do that. I'm so rizzed. We're all very rizzed and so many Zoomers are in pain right now as we say that. Yeah, but I mean, I think that's great, right?

Language evolves, that's natural. But this is more of just like a smug kind of like, it's a novelty word that doesn't seem to do much other than like smugly declare how long you can say a word for, or if you can spell well, which I can't, so it makes me mad when other people can. That's right. And yeah, and the Oxford English Dictionary makes this really clear because they have the word in the dictionary and they briefly give the definition of opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England, end quote. But then immediately under that they say, quote, usually only occurring in context where

it is given as an example of a very long word, end quote. Right. Because both are true. Yeah, that's shade. That's word shade right there, used only in a really insufferable context. And then in their online examples, they have four examples of usage of it, but they're all from the 1900s or more recent, and only one of them is the sincere one. What's the one sincere one? In 2005, an article in the Daily Telegraph said that the paper has maintained its anti-disestablishmentarianism

position, that it wants to keep the Church of England as the state religion of the Kingdom of England. The other examples are a newspaper in 1900 and a newspaper in 1960, both describing it as a long word. And then a joke in a 1987 episode of Blackadder. Blackadder is a comedy show starring Rowan Atkinson. Yeah, I watched that whole series back in high school because I'm not a nerd and neither are you apparently.

Right. We did it in between doing jock stuff, I guess. Yeah. Push-ups. Every time Rowan Atkinson made a dry witticism, I did one pull-up. There's one joke in Blackadder where a character says they will return, quote, before you can say, anti-disestablishmentarianism, which is a fine joke. It's cool. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. But it's referring to the annoying usage of the word, you know? And so that's exactly how we got it. It's as meaningless as someone annoyed by it thinks it is, but in a very complex way. Yeah. I mean, I'm not opposed to talking about it because I think talking about it is interesting. But the word is a little bit, you know, I don't know.

It's gilding the lily a bit. It's putting a hat on a turd. I'm not a big fan of it. And in English we use phrases like that instead of gildification mugan hat turd, you know? I do like that word though. Gildification mugan hat turd. you know? I do like that word though. Guiltification Mugen hat turd. It's a good one. Thanks for maintaining me really just losing track

of where I was going in the middle. Yeah. Folks, that's two entire takeaways. And now we have so many numbers and statistics for you. Time for numbers and statistics. And this week that is in a segment called... them on Cif. Now they're all stuck in my head. Nice. That name was submitted by Roro on the Discord. Thank you Roro. We have a new name every week.

Please make a Messilian Wacking Bass possible. Submit through Discord or to cifpod at gmail.com. Also thank you to XKRX for rolling with that one. I can taste the Mike's Hard Lemonade in my mouth after that, the dancing and how I would always go like when we'd be played at whatever party I was at in college and I'd be like, sweet Caroline. And then the rest like, I don't know the lyrics, but then the sweet Caroline comes in and then I say it as if I know what's going on, I don't know the lyrics, but then the sweet Caroline comes in and then I say it as if I know what's going on and I don't. And this is my third Mike's Hard Lemonade I've had that night. So, you know, good memories. Yeah. And I think it's also associated with the Boston Red Sox. So maybe it was a college

thing for you. Like that kind of ties in, you know, just regional. You're right. You're right. That was definitely played a lot. And then like when Red Sox won the World Series, I was there and people were dancing in the street and stuff. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The first number here is kind of back to the real meaning of the word. It's 14%. In a 2018 survey, 14% of the British people who responded identified as Anglican and part of the Church of England. That's across all of the UK. So England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland. That doesn't seem like a lot.

It's not. And apparently it's a big drop. In 2002, the same survey found 31% of people. And so 2018, it was less than half of that, just 14%. We're losing Anglicans. That's how they feel. The source there is the UK National Centre for Social Research. It's a nonprofit that runs a British social attitudes survey. It got written up in The Guardian. A couple other numbers there. 70% is the amount of British people under the age of 24 who reported no religious faith at there. 70% is the amount of British people under the age of 24 who reported no religious faith at all. 70%. Whoa! 70, seven zero. Yeah. So like, did they specify,

they said no religious faith. Does that mean that they're, did they like specify agnostic, atheist, or just don't identify with any specific organized religion? Really good question. Apparently it's an identification thing. Because also the 14% Anglican, it's people identifying as that. It's not necessarily regular church attendance even. I see. Okay.

So that's another way that it's a low number is like, it's just a vibe. Yeah. I'd be really interested to see how that 70% breaks down in terms of like, are people still, do people have vague beliefs, right? Like do they believe in say God and an afterlife, but they don't identify with any religion or do they not believe in that? I mean, it's just kind of an interesting, it's certainly a high number, right? Of people who are not identifying with any specific established religion. It is really.

And another part of that, because again, that's an all UK survey, the next number is 18%. This is just Scotland. 18% of Scottish respondents identified as Church of Scotland. Wow, that's pretty low for, yeah, that's pretty low. Both the Church of England and Church of Scotland appear to be declining pretty steeply and disestablishment could gain momentum with that and even gain it separately from the question of the monarchy. Listen churches, you got to step up your game, you got to step up your Riz churches, you gotta step up your game, you gotta step up your Riz. And might I suggest a Badger as your mascot? So like instead of the Pope or like, you know, the God or Jesus.

The Archbishop of Canterbury. Right. Yeah. Archbishop. Thank you. Archbishop of Blueberry or whatever you just said. Like maybe a fun mascot, like a Badger wearing like a- Arch badger, arch badger. An arch badger wearing the vestments or like a bulldog smoking and also with a halo. I don't know. Make it happen, guys. And also maybe instead of wine, you could consider a white claw.

Badgers have claws. It all makes sense. It all fits together. Yeah, like white clawing Pringles, and I don't think Jesus would mind, right? Yeah, archbishops around the world are just getting more and more excited as we talk. They're more and more happy about what we're saying. Yeah, got to ride a skateboard. If the Archbishop of Canterbury ground down on a buttress, I

think that you would see church membership go up. And I'm saying this as an agnostic person, but I think it's still helpful advice. And so yeah, this church is both a major institution and it may be difficult to justify establishing. Like that disestablishmentarianism might be a thing that grows and then here come the anti-disestablishmentarianism to oppose it. Right. Which, you know... Wow. I've been researching that word all week and I still couldn't kind of say it. That's fun. It's not a very nice word. It's so hard to say. The good thing about it,

I guess the good thing about it is that, I think generally disestablishing a church that's, I mean, I'm very much against churches being involved in government. I think people should just be able to, that should just be part of people's local communities or private lives or whatever.

But the cool thing about that, the word anti-disestablishmentarianism is that's really hard to write on a sign. So if you're going to counter protest, disestablishmentarianism, it's like, okay. And then your hand gets a cramp and you're like, you know what, I don't actually care about the church this much. Right. Moving on. Going to go watch footy at the pub. I'm out.

You really know your English people. So in college, I studied abroad in London and I really think I learned a lot about the culture. I tend to be pretty versed in it when it comes up. It was an actual cultural exchange even though you don't have a language to learn. Yeah, you're like the Jane Goodall for British people. Punters in the Mist. Yeah, that's my book. The next number here is 29 letters. And it's especially exciting if you find the word that's this week's topic annoying.

29 letters is the length of the longest word in Merriam-Webster's dictionary. Ooh. So, this is a word that actually gets a nice cozy spot in the dictionary. Yes. And it's one letter longer than anti-disestablishmentarianism. Oh my goodness. What is it? So take that. What is it? What is it? What is it? Say it fast. Quick.

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. Ah, nice. I love that. I love it. That's my favorite flavor. Right. Code SIF gets you 10% off a snack package of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. It's delicious. So acrylonitrile butadiene styrene is a word, it has two hyphens in the middle, but even not counting the hyphens, it's 29 letters long. Anti-disestablishmentarianism is 28 letters long. Take that. Even the trivia is wrong.

That's really not the longest word in English. Yeah. I'm going to try saying it because it looks interesting. Acrylonitrile... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Acrylonitrile butytene styrene. That's pretty good. Yeah.

Yeah. And this word, many scientific words are longer than anti-disasalishmentarianism. Dictionaries often skip the super long scientific words, but this one is in such common and widespread and sustained usage. It's made its way into dictionaries. I'm like, what's up? You got that good acrylonitrile, wait, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene? Yeah. And it's often nicknamed ABS because we don't wear ourselves out when we speak. In real life.

Why would we? So acrylonitrile butadiene styrene is a tough, rigid plastic used for everything from automobile parts to building materials to toys to 3D printing. It's in so many applications. We have the acronym ABS and it makes sense in the dictionary. Okay. Okay. So it's just used a lot in terms of like, yeah, we got some genuine ABS on this car or this doll or whatever is happening. That's right. Basically, the only reason anti-disestablishmentarianism gets to be a trivia question is that it's older than acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. We've only had that for

several decades and we started talking about disestablishing the Church of England in the 1700s. So that's why. But I bet acrylonitrile butadiene styrene lasts a lot longer, both the word and also the material, which is probably never going to break down and will be here long after everything's dead. That's right. When the Archbishop of Canterbury is rubble, ABS will live on. Take that.

He crumbles into little pieces when he dies. Yeah, that's very exciting about this word. Anyone who is irritating with it is wrong. And also there's a bunch of interesting things about it. I love it. And folks, that's so many numbers and two takeaways. We're going to take a quick break, then return with two more takeaways about two heroic children. Hero children!

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And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode. Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun. People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Which is why here on Just the Zoo of Us, we judge them by so much more. We rate animals out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics, taking into consideration each animal's true strengths. Like a pigeon's ability to tell a Monet from a Picasso, or a polar bear's ability to tell a Monet from a Picasso or a polar bear's ability

to play basketball. Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, and more join us to share their unique insight into the animal's world. Listen with friends and family of all ages on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. And we're back. And as promised, we're going to talk about Hero Children, starting with takeaway number three. Anti-disestablishmentarianism is not the longest word ever spoken in British Parliament because of a sincere, heroic teenager. Wow. That's... I'm... Okay. This is a takeaway about a name British listeners are going to be upset to hear because he's one of the single most irritating people in political life, but then he got one-upped

by a teenager. So that's good. Oh, sweet. Okay. Boris Johnson? A kind of worse, a guy named Jacob Rees-Mogg. Huh. Who's less famous. Is he like in the House of Lords or something? He was in the House of Commons and was like a Brexit minister in a few other Tory cabinet positions. I see, okay.

He basically does a character of being super educated and rich and a toff if you want to say that. Oh no. Say his name again. Jacob Rees-Mogg, hyphenated Rees-Mogg. Yeah. Yeah. A weasley guy, but also like the upper crust is his take.

Does he like sip a little cup of tea when he's up there in parliament and goes like, I just don't understand why the polls can't be less poor? Almost. Yeah, but like at one point he pretended to fall asleep in parliament as like a rejection of what the other person was talking about. I'm ever so bored. He was in parliament from 2010 to 2024. He lost his race in 2024. Since then, he's spent his time filming a reality show about

himself. And in the trailer, he says that he likes to wind people up on purpose. I think it's fairer than ever to call him professionally annoying. He's just an irritating person for money and for fame. Yeah, that kind of person that's like, oh, I'm not actually an a-hole. I just like to pretend to be an a-hole to rile people up. And it's like, that just makes you an a-hole. That just makes you annoying. And it's like, no, I'm just pretending to be an idiot so that other people are annoyed by how much of an idiot I am.

That's a lot of words to say you're an idiot. Exactly. But he's professionally so smart. And so as part of his only job that he's ever had, he made sure to say a word that is one letter longer than anti-disestablishmentarianism in an official parliament discussion. And I guess people track who has said the longest word ever spoken in the record of parliament, so he made himself the new record holder in 2012. Wow. What a really well-lived life that is. Here is the word he used, because again, anti-disestablishmentarianism is 28 letters long. I also couldn't find super specific records of it being said in parliament, but we know a longer word has been said. The word Riesmag said is flasinosinahilip... No, sorry.

Flasinosinahilipification. Whoa. I know I missed a syllable actually. It's longer than that. It's very hard to say. Is that some kind of chemical process or biological process? It's not scientific. No? Flacinosine hilipilification. There we go.

That is a word that means thinking of something as worthless. Okay, guys. The definition's about the same number of letters. This is not a word anybody uses for anything. And apparently it came from a late 1400s grammarian who was goofing around. It's never been used in real life by anybody unless you're professionally annoying in parliament. Yeah. No, it's...

Yeah. No, it's yeah. Floss and awesome. If they like a quick, a bit of a kick about flossing awesome, if they like a good book, hang on. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it.

I can do it. I can do it. Floss and awesome. If Philly, no, here, live vacation, hillification, flossing awesome, the little bit of a vacation.

Yeah. If you broke it into four parts, the third part is like impossible. It's like such a mess. Yeah. Floss and awesome. Pillification. Yeah. So he made sure to say this so he could get in the newspaper. And, uh, he's an awful guy. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I, you know, I can say, I can go like, doo-doo, poo-poo. Should I be able to get into newspaper? Put me in newspaper.

Cause I say, blah, blah, blah, poo-poo, doo-doo. That's got a lot of words and syllables in it. Yeah. And this really speaks to how any word as long as anti-disestablishmentarianism in the English language is kind of fake. In a language like Finnish or Japanese or sort of German, they're real often. English doesn't work this way. We don't make words this long because we don't want to.

It's not our style of speaking. Yeah, which is fine. It's fine, guys. It really is. It's really okay to use, you know, words that are normal, just normal men, just innocent, just normal men, innocent men, normal words, innocent words. Is that that puppet from TV saying that? Yeah, it's that puppet.

I think it's Australian or something. Yeah, it's just normal men, innocent men. Yeah. And so Ries Mag said this in 2012, and the newspaper said it's the longest word ever spoken in parliament. In 2017, he got one-upped by a 16-year-old. Ah, hell yeah. Because what happened is parliament formed was called a youth select committee. They're not members of parliament, but it's teenagers who get to address parliament Ah, hell yeah. Because what happened is parliament formed was called a Youth Select Committee. They're not members of parliament, but it's teenagers who get to address parliament about teen issues. That's even better if like this teenager just owned this, you know, smug jerk without even trying.

That's fantastic. No cap. Yeah, no cap. So his name is Michael Bryan. He's a teenager. They were having an earnest discussion of healthcare and health issues. And Michael Bryan said a word that's 45 letters long. Oh my goodness. So more than 60% longer than the word that Rhys Mogg used.

Wait, is this the one starting with the P? Yes. You want to try to say it? Can I try? Yeah, yeah. Starting with the P? Yes. You want to try to say it? Can I try? Yeah, yeah. Hang on. Okay.

45 letters long, folks. Wait, let me do a breathing exercise. Okay. Pneumonoultramicroscopic silicovolcanicosis. Wait, cnoesis. Yeah, I think you only missed that late syllable there. Yeah, that's pretty good. Right.

Wow. Good job. Yay. Do I win parliament? Yeah, you win the sky. Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'s pretty good. Right. Wow.

Good job. Yay. Do I win parliament? Yeah, you win this guy. Yeah. Sweet. I'm the queen of parliament now. All right, Alex, tell me about this word and maybe say it a little better than I did.

Much like anti-zest-establishmentarianism, it's describing something real. I'm going to try it now. Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Coniosis, that's right. You got the last part better than I did. Thank you. And the syllables kind of stand apart a little better than Rhys Mogg's word, so that helps. This is a word that it seems like word nerds invented, but it's for a medical condition where your lungs are

damaged by particles from volcanoes. Like a volcano erupts, you breathe it in and it hurts your lungs. You get like silica in your lungs from the volcano. I see. I see. So it's like the black lung or something, but from volcano. You could just say volcano lung and that's actually sounds pretty metal. I'm sure it's not.

Like I'm sure it's very not metal to have this condition because it is probably really bad. But if you said volcano lung, it'd be a little cooler sounding. And yeah, and either way, I couldn't find a transcript. I really wanted one. But according to the journalistic coverage of it, Michael Bryan was trying to make a broader point about the disparity between our resources for taking care of physical health and our resources for taking care of mental health. We have every word you can imagine for physical health conditions and we barely even talk about mental health was his point.

That's a fantastic point. And so he's using this word in a context that, because he's pointing out that here's this really long cumbersome word, that means a very specific health issue. And we have this word and that's fine, but then we don't have enough words, terminology and attention paid to mental health. That's a really good point. And he used, he's not just using like language to like show off. He's using it in a context and for a point that makes a lot of sense. So way more thoughtful and smart than that guy named Prince Mogues Stington.

Lord Farquhar. Lord Farquhar, yeah. Yeah, it's as if he cares about other human beings. Yeah. And also Michael Bryan in an interview, he said that this word, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcano coniosis, he called this word, quote, ridiculous. Like he thinks it's stupid and he was using it to help make an actual point. He was using the word to highlight a point, which is like that is, I think that's really it. Yeah, exactly.

It's a great point he was making. First of all, yeah, the point was good, right? We should give more attention to mental health issues. You're using the length of it and the cumbersomeness and specificity of it to show that, look, this is what we have accomplished in terms of medicine, in terms of getting really, really specific, maybe even too specific, right? And then we just lack that in terms of mental health care, having basic stuff for being able to communicate about it. So yeah, that's a great point. Really owned that other guy. I love that.

Really had this kid had the Riz. Is that correct? He did have Riz, I feel. I think we're using that wrong. Yeah, so cool. And then another interesting kid is our final takeaway, the main show, because takeaway number four. Anti-disestablishmentarianism became well known in the United States because a child spelled it right on TV. Hmm. Well, already this child is better than me at spelling, which, you know, like that's fine. I got to hand it to children who are probably, you know, a lot of children are probably better at me than spelling, to be honest.

This happened in 1955. A child won a TV game show by spelling it right. I think patents are like, isn't it impressive that I know this word? But all of the parts are spelled like they sound. Like as a spelling challenge, it's actually not that hard. It like fits all the rules of English and the root languages of English pretty directly. Yeah, but I mean, she's also 12, so still pretty cool. Alex, don't be too harsh on this 12-year-old. Oh, it's amazing. And then some, yeah. The key source here is wonderful writing by an etymologist named Jess Zephyrus. She runs the blog Useless Etymology. She's an author. I'm also linking her TikTok account, which is awesome. Another source backing this up is the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

Anti-disclosurementarianism came up on really the first popular TV game show in the US. In 1955, they launched a show called The $64,000 Question. The format was a lot like who wants to be a millionaire. You just answer questions one at a time and either keep your money or keep going all the way up to 64. Who wants to be a $64,000 millionaire? Yeah. In today's money, that's about three quarters of a million dollars. It's really a similar show. That's a lot. That's a lot.

Yeah. People got way into this. It also became one of the key shows in the quiz show scandal in the late 1950s. And so, that killed it off. It turned out- Quiz show scandal? Yeah. It turned out this show and other shows either gave people the answers ahead of time to make

it more interesting or lied about how they generated questions. There's now very strict federal criminal law around game shows because of that. Wow, that's wild. Yeah, it was a massive actual scandal. This wasn't the main show in it, but it was one show in it. But was this, so this 12 year old though, was she part of the scandal or did she genuinely know how to spell this word? So she genuinely knew and got asked about it by Congress later?

Oh no. This was major national crime news. Congress looked into it, not her, the broader thing. Would they have arrested a 12-year-old for being unwittingly part of a game show crime ring? And she was also never charged with anything. They just wanted testimony from anybody they could get. And the producers and people like that were the criminals. Can you imagine?

Just like, well in this game show you slimed your own mother. Now were you a part of this large money laundering scheme? It's a Nickelodeon game show from the 1990s. Yeah. You crawled through a giant ear. Now, can you please under oath swear that you did not violate the emoluments clause for children's television? The constitution says you cannot double dare someone. You can only single dare.

Double jeopardy is obviously not allowed. Yeah, double jeopardy. Yeah, not allowed. You're in trouble, Alex. That's true. Jeopardy champion, Alex. But yeah, so in the peak of its popularity and its first year on the air, a 12-year-old named Gloria Lockerman was a contestant and she correctly spelled anti-disestablishmentarianism.

It was the $8,000 question. And then she got another question right for $16,000 and then stopped and collected the money, which is approaching 200 grand in today's money. She sounds like a very intelligent child because that's a lot of money to earn as a 12 year old. And she knew when to hold them, knew when to spell them. She was a sensation on TV for a lot of reasons, not just her age and succeeding on this new hit trend show.

Because she's 12, she brought her grandmother along. And not for help with questions, just for advice on, should I keep going, grandma? Which is really cute. Oh, it's so cute. Like if you've seen Millionaire, you understand how that would be fun and interesting. But I'm looking at them and they're... Because when was this show? Can you remind me what year this was? 1955. Yeah, because they're in the 50s garb. She's got like a little hair barrette. She's got a cute little

like dress on and her grandma has like a little grandma hat on. Just really, really cute. It is. And the other thing that wowed America is that these people are black Americans. She and her grandma are black. And for good, bad, everything in between, people were like, whoa, a black girl can do this. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We had some messed up beliefs, which thankfully are all gone now. It's done. Right. And like the good version happened too. Black people were like, this is great. Cool. Or like people who just care about other humans were like, it's cool to see a black person get to do this. Yeah. Positive representation is good.

Big news all around. Yeah. Also like, what is that hair, the little hairstyle where her bangs are really like little, like a bouffant. She's got a little bouffant, which is really cute. We need to bring back some, basically nothing from the 50s except the hair. Yeah, car tail fins were pretty good, but I feel like all those cars were not efficient. So yeah, not very safe. They were sort of like people crunches. But yeah. True.

So, yeah, and so Gloria Ockerman proceeds to be a national celebrity for many years. She's in parades, she's in galas. Other variety shows had her on for cameos and stunts to answer more questions. Apparently, she appeared on a variety show called The Martha Ray Show. And it was a hit episode, but also drew so many bigoted complaints from viewers. It helped cancel The Martha Ray Show completely. Oh my God. Are you serious? Then it was national news and newspapers when she enrolled in college at age 17.

Wow. She went to Morgan State University, which is a historically black college in her hometown of Baltimore. It's such a cute story, but then it's just mired in this disgusting history that we're still dealing with, right? Where it's like, how can you look at this adorable smart girl on TV and your first thought is like, I'm going to be a hater. Exactly. And so that was just a bummer all around. And then she received further harassment at the end of the 1950s when the quiz show scandal comes out. Because racist people say she probably just received all the questions. Like how would a black

person or a girl, you know, misogynists were mad. Right. It's everybody. Right. Yeah. It's double whammy. Yeah. She's a child, she's a girl and she's black. So like all like people are going to be, I think there's a harmful perception of children as being incapable of being complex and intelligent sometimes. And that is not true. And it can be very damaging. That's true. That is a third way she took really unnecessary heat for no good reason. Yeah. The thing is, Gloria Lockerman is brilliant. She not just went to undergrad at Morgan State,

she went to grad school at McGill University in Canada, a further degree at the University of Grenoble in France. She became a language teacher in Pennsylvania. She's brilliant and the exact kind of person who would know how to spell anti-disestablishmentarianism. She's then called to give testimony at these congressional hearings where other people are the criminal. She helped prove that she was on the level and the show was not. Interesting. Because it turns out that the show gave people a long list of long words to practice spelling ahead of time.

But not her? She was one of the people apparently, but they didn't know which word would be the question. The list was 600 words long. They were basically doing a thing of trying to generate a few more correct answers from their entire contestant pool, which is cheating and bad. from their entire contestant pool, which is cheating and bad. I mean, that still takes a huge amount of skill though to go through a list of 600 words. Exactly. And she could not have memorized that. She didn't have more information than that.

She apparently had never heard of the word anti-disestablishmentarianism. She just put it together through spelling logic. Yeah. Like you learn the basic rules, you learn the suffixes and you learn which root the word probably has. And then you use the, because like in English we do have some different spelling rules are a little bit cockamamie. Don't ask me to spell that one.

And it's, so you have to figure out what- That's a Latin root, right? The emperor cockamamie. and then let's see. Exactly. So it sounds like she did everything right. The game show did not necessarily do everything right, although I still feel like that's only borderline cheating to be like, here's a list of 600 words. Because if someone can actually study that hard enough to get some of those words, right? It's like, yeah, that's still very impressive. As long as they just told people that that's what they're doing. Exactly. Yeah. The main crimes of $64,000 question were stuff like

they pretended they used a supercomputer to help them create answers, like a mainframe, you know? And that was just fake. There was no computer ever. Like that kind of thing, you know? That's kind of funny though. Just like, some guy at a cardboard box with computer panels drawn in, going beep boop, here is the answer. And that continued with game shows into the 80s. The game show Press Your Luck pretended to have a random game board that was not. And so Gloria Lockerman just throughout her life proved that she was brilliant and particularly amazing at spelling and language. And she got this question fair and square. Yeah. And then the other thing that happened is when it was national news that she spelled

anti-disestablishmentarianism, Americans proceeded to regurgitate that as a trivia question forever. I see. I see. They said, that's the longest word because it must be and spelling it's interesting. That's why basically anybody in the United States has heard of this word because we know even less than British people do about disestablishing the Church of England. That's not how we heard this word. Right. Well, I'm not going to blame the intelligent child hero for this word being used in trivia.

I'm going to blame the game show. Yes, the game show's fault. They picked it up from British jerks. It was probably truly just one person in a production office founded in one book. Oh, you mean the supercomputer beep boop. Folks, that's the main episode for this week. Welcome to the outro with fun features for for you such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, anti-disestablishmentarianism is a word for a political and religious position of maintaining the Church of England as the state religion in England.

Takeaway number two, anti-disestablishmentarianism is pretty much a fictional word and almost not in the dictionary. Takeaway number three, anti-disestablishmentarianism is not the longest word ever spoken in British Parliament, thanks to a sincere, heroic teenager. Takeaway number four, anti-disestablishmentarianism became a well-known word in the United States, thanks to a child spelling it correctly on a game show. And then a set of stats and numbers this week right in the middle there, we talked about the actual potential for disestablishment in England and Scotland, the length of anti-disestablishmentarianism, the longer word that is in most dictionaries, and more.

Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode because there's more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org. Members are the reason that this podcast exists. So members get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is three surprising contenders for the actual longest English word.

I sincerely think one of them should replace anti-disestablishmentarianism and replace acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. Visit sifpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 18 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of Max Fun bonus shows. It's special audio, it's just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things, check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumVun.org. Key sources this week include…

Excellent online resources from dictionaries, in particular the Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Also leaning on expertise from etymologist Jess Seferis, who has a wonderful blog called Useless Etymology as well as an excellent TikTok. And we draw on further journalism and history from The Guardian, PBS, The New York Times, and more. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land

of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wappinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skattagook people, and others. Also KD taped this in the country of Italy, and I want to acknowledge that in my location, in many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free CIF Discord where we're sharing stories and resources about Native people and life. There is a link in this episode's description to join the Discord.

We're also talking about this episode on the Discord, and hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Cause each week I'm finding you something randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator. This week's pick is episode 130 that's about the topic of paper clips. Fun fact there, the Microsoft character Clippy was designed by men and considered too sexist by female focus groups. So I recommend that episode. I also recommend my cohost Katie Golden's weekly podcast Creature Feature about animals, science, and more. Our theme music is

Unbroken, Un-Shavin' by the BUDOS band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Burton Durand also did the logo for the Inspector's Inspectors, our recent fun recap show for Max Fun Members. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra extra special thanks go to our members. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.