Blogtrek

Words that won't stop

When I hear some words, I want to hear the word go on and on. Some words are built for this. For example, in a radio ad in the 1960s, I heard them sing "Wearever aluminuminuminum". The word is aluminum. But the word is rhythmical with its two m's, and it makes me feel like the inuming should go on and on forever: aluminuminuminuminum….

Just recently I found a web page with a list of such words. namely Words where it is not clear where to stop. This site has other good entries, such as theseses, possessessesses, banananana, and alfalfalfalfa. The funniest ones I think are those with n's and m's in it, such as aluminuminum and phenomenomenomen. I especially like millenniummunnumunum, with its indecision between single and double m's and n's, its making a repetition where there wasn't one, and its looks when typed out in a word processor or when it is handwritten. Both look like a big blur; the handwritten version looks like someone scribbled across the page.

To these I can add some of my own:

Alabamalabamalabama (so both Southern states go on forever)
institutitutitutitutitutitution
abilibilibilibilibility (do you have the abilibility to create these nonstop words?)
abilitilitilitilitility
Mississippississippississippississippi (flows freer than with all s's)
Tennessennessennessee
murdererererererererer
deaded

The last two appeared in an old Carol Burnett show where someone on a rowboat that she is on gets thrown overboard by someone else, and Carol said, "You murdererererer! Now he's deaded." These nonstop words remind me of periodic decimals in arithmetic, such as 3/11 = 0.2727272727… The hallmark of a rational number is that it repeats the same thing forever. So these words that I am talking about are "rational" words. Actually, terminating decimals such as 2/5 = 0.4 are repeaters to, of zeroes: 2/5 = 0.4000000…; in the same way any word can be thought of as repeating blanks on the end. I'll stop right here, but the words in this blog can go on forever.