BIG WORDS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 137, 17 December 1875, Page 16

BIG WORDS.

A citizen of Baltimore has "been hunting up some big words, and publishes them in the ' American' for the benefit of the getter-up of spelling matches. The first word offered is said to be the longest word in the English language, used often in old plays, and placed in the mouth of Costard, the clown in " Love's Labor Lost," Act 3, Scene 1 : " Honorificabilitudinitatibus." The next in " Pilgrims of the Rhine," Ijy Bulwer, " Amoronthologosphorus." The next from Rabelais, " Antipcricalamct inanaparbeugedain-phic-Ribrationestoordecantium." The next is the name of an officer now in Madrid, Don Juan Nepomuc«no de Burionagonatorecagagezoecha. The next is a town in the Isle of Mull, " Drimtaidhvrickhillichattan." The next, " Jimgfrauenzimmeixlurehsohwindsuehttoedlungsgegcnverein." " Nitrophenyienediamine" and "Polyphrasticontinoinimegalondulation" are two words that recently appeared in the London ' Times' and ' Star.' " Sankashtaehaturthivratodyapana." " Swupanchaksharimanamantcastora." I The names of two productions of Sanscrit literature. kishlepikossuphophattoperiserirtlisktaiionoptegkeimlolcigkopcleiolagoosiraiobaphetiviganopterugon." This last word is the longest in any language. X may be found in the " Ekklesiazousai " of Aristophanes, a very excellent comedy, and placed in the mouth of one of the actors. It consists of IG9 letters, and makes seventy-sevun syllables, and must have created some laughter when spoken. Some actors of the present day would hardly risk it.

About noon on Monday, says the ' Tuapeka Times,' the district was visited by what appeared to be the tail end of a most unusual storm. Both before and after the occurrence, which did not last more than ten or at most fifteen minutes, the atmosphere was bright and if anything oppressively warm. A few minutes before the hour indicated, the sky became overcast, and from time to time rumbling peals of distant thunder were heard. A flash or two of sheet lightning was also emitted, but it was not by any means vivid. During the time this was going on, parties in the vicinity of Gabriels and other gullies leading down from that direction became sensible of a heavy battering kind of noise — too heavy to be mistaken for rain, and not sharp enough to pass for a discharge of musketry. Speculation, which, for the moment was rife, was soou set at rest by a sudden downfall of hail or rather pieces of ice resembling bullets both in size and shape. During the few minutes the shower lasted the noise and general scamper for shelter could not have been greater although an unintermitting fire of small shot had poured into Lawrence from every point of the compass. Orchards and garden plots have sustained considerable damage. Some of the better class of fruit trees and bushes have been literally stripped, and vegetation generally sustained rather a rude shock. Happily the storm was of short duration, as before the icicles had time to disappear from even the main thoroughfares, the sun was shining as bright and warmly as ever. The district grain crops continue to look remarkably well. To all appearances the harvest will be fully up to the average yield of preceding seasons. The late rains have been specially beneficial to crops growing on the high-lands. Of the expatriated German Jesuits SI- have gone to settle down in Asia, and 20 in Africa. There are said to be seventy-two Arabs preparing for the priesthood in Algeria. President McMahon has thirty-seven decorations. Throe Calif omian papers arc edited by [women. They arc all democratic in politics. A whole Jewish family, numbering five persons, were baptized Catholics in Koine recently. New Orleans now has twenty-nine parish churches, whereas thirty years ago it only possessed four.