February 15, 2010
Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a 50,000 word novel, “Gadsby”, which doesn’t contain the letter E.

True - impressively Ernest Vincent Wright was able to pen 50,110 words into a grammatically correct lipogramatic novel in 1939 without the use of the letter ‘e’ as well as avoiding any abbreviations where the letter would be omitted (but present upon expansion) such as Mr. or Mrs.

p.s. we briefly entertained the notion to write this fact-check as a lipogram, but were quick to realize that we are very much fact-checkers and not literary geniuses.  If anyone out there in the internet can do it, we’d love to see it!

original claim: @OMGFacts; source: wikipedia

8:52am  |   URL: http://omgfactcheck.tumblr.com/post/390784619/ernest-vincent-wright-wrote-a-50-000-word-novel
(No. OF NOTES: 44)
  
FILED UNDER: OMGFacts Literature Lipogram Language English 
February 10, 2010
The longest English word, at 45 letters, is ‘pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’.

False - that title belongs to the Chemical name of titin, the largest known protein, at 189,819 characters:

Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl[…]isoleucine (full name)

Second place goes to a 183 character word transliterated from Ancient Greek:

Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhy-
potrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokich-
lepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephall-
iokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis sits firmly in third place, there are disputes as to its legitimacy, as it is claimed that this word was invented purely to serve as a long word.  It should be noted that, Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest english word to be in a current major dictionary.

original claim: @OMGFacts; source: wikipedia, Oxford University Press

11:56pm  |   URL: http://omgfactcheck.tumblr.com/post/383140774/the-longest-english-word-at-45-letters-is
(No. OF NOTES: 28)
  
FILED UNDER: OMGFacts english wordplay language Oxford English Dictionary wikipedia 
‘Typewriter’ is the longest English word that can be made by using only one row of a keyboard.

False - ‘teetertotter’ is the longest unhyphenated word that can be spelled on a single row of a typewriter keyboard (QUERTY layout), coming in at 12 characters.  There are four (4) other 10 character words that can be spelled out on a single row of a keyboard: perpetuity, proprietor, repertoire, and shakalshas.

update: out of our own curiosity, we looked up the longest word that can be spelled on a single row of a Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, we found three (3) 10 character words: unhandiest, dianthuses, and astonished.  If you can find/think-of anything longer, let us know!

original claim: @OMGFacts; source: Taxonomy of Wordplay

10:44am  |   URL: http://omgfactcheck.tumblr.com/post/381941357/typewriter-is-the-longest-english-word-that-can-be
(No. OF NOTES: 21)
  
FILED UNDER: OMGFacts QWERTY english language wordplay dvorak 
February 5, 2010
“Almost” is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

False - “Aegilops” is the longest word in the English language with all its characters in alphabetical order with eight (8) characters. Aegilops is a genus of plants generally known as goatgrasses and belonging to the grass family, Poaceae.  ”Almost” shares second place with several other six (6) character words: biopsy, chinos, chintz, bijoux, abhors, begins, and chimps.  And if you allow duplicate characters, “Almost” and it’s brethren are bumped to third place, as “billowy” is seven (7) characters in length, all in alphabetical order.

original claim:@OMGFacts; source: wikipedia, Taxonomy of Wordplay

5:26pm  |   URL: http://omgfactcheck.tumblr.com/post/372939289/almost-is-the-longest-word-in-the-english-language
(No. OF NOTES: 19)
  
FILED UNDER: English Language OMGFacts Wordplay wikipedia lmgtfy 
January 16, 2010
There are about 540,000 words in the English language and growing.

False - According to the Oxford University Press, publishers of the famous Oxford English Dictionary - which is often considered to be the definitive record of English in its current-modern usage, the question of counting words is nonsense:

It is impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it is so hard to decide what counts as a word. Is dog one word, or two (a noun meaning ‘a kind of animal’, and a verb meaning ‘to follow persistently’)? If we count it as two, then do we count inflections separately too (dogs plural noun, dogs present tense of the verb). Is dog-tired a word, or just two other words joined together? Is hot dog really two words, since we might also find hot-dog or even hotdog?

But does go on to offer some figures to consider:

The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words.

A half point should be awarded to @OMGFacts, as the English language is very much a living language, continuing to grow, and constantly changing.

original claim: @OMGFacts; source: Oxford University Press

2:48am  |   URL: http://omgfactcheck.tumblr.com/post/337104902/there-are-about-540-000-words-in-the-english-language
FILED UNDER: OMGFacts English Language Oxford English Dictionary Counting