antidisestablishmentarianism

I taught my spawn the pronunciation and meaning of several "large" terms. I found the child's pronunciation of non-sequitur the most amusing--especially as children are quite prone to using them.

bluebirdcry,
my father taught it to me when I was five...he got a kick out of me saying it...he taught me the word perpendicular the same day and I had to recite the meaning of that word...he didn't hold me to the meaning of the "longest" word.

I remember my father teaching this word to me as a small child. Well, smaller than I am currently.

You're right though, children armed with words such as this are quite unbearable.

It is the kind of word that brings out one's insufferable side.

I remember being so chuffed as a kid for knowing the “world's longest word”. Some might say insufferable

The REAL longest word is pnuemonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a lung disease from inhaling volcanic dust.

I think the lexicographers are irrationally attached to certain words like this. A usage note is probably the correct thing to do, but that seems unlikely in the near future.

That would be todally awesome, though I don't see it happening any time soon.

So, isn't the dictionary definition supposed to reflect a word's most common usage? If nobody uses it to mean "opposition to the belief that there should no longer be an official church in a country" then shouldn't the dictionary reflect what people do use it for, and leave it at that? With perhaps a note about what the word used to mean?

A word used more for example than for its meaning. It looks like a cityscape.

(never mind what I said. move along. nothing to see here.)