OT: is this real?

Fyron · #1 December 24th, 2003, 07:48 AM

That is wrong. The longest word is the full extension of DNA, which is either around 40,000 letters or 400,000 letters, I forget.

TerranC · #2 December 24th, 2003, 08:10 AM

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_English

oleg · #3 December 24th, 2003, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
That is wrong. The longest word is the full extension of DNA, which is either around 40,000 letters or 400,000 letters, I forget.

What do you mean by that ? If you refer to the human genome, then that is around 10^10 bases.

Fyron · #4 December 24th, 2003, 10:04 AM

Check TerranC's link.

I was way off on the number of letters.

DavidG · #5 December 24th, 2003, 12:58 PM

I think the Guiness people and whoever made the page Narf posted need to look up the definition of word. I don't think DNA or the word Narf posted qualify.

Fyron · #6 December 24th, 2003, 06:22 PM

What aspects of being a word do they not qualify for? They are properly constructed strings of letters that have a real, functional meaning.

[ December 24, 2003, 16:23: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Phoenix-D · #7 December 24th, 2003, 06:36 PM

DNA might qualify as a word since almost no one uses deoxyribonucleic acid, the long form. But the actual DNA sequences doesn't; its a code, not a word.