Word length


21 Aug 2011

One of the questions I wanted to answer when I started this project was: What are the longest words Sal uses? And here's the answer.

Longest words

When I first looked for the longest words I found that in several subjects, the longest word was [unintelligible], which was annoying (especially as two of the 'letters' are brackets, which I hadn't stripped out). I also found that the longest word in the Biology playlist was 'phosphoglyceraldehydees', which is a misspelling.

After solving all those problems, I ran my search twice, in one including hyphenated words as a single word. The table below shows the longest words for each playlist and the number of letters they have (the number in parentheses if for when hyphenated words are included).

Subject Words Length Words (incl hyphens)
Pre-algebra 15 0.0000000008192, straightforward
Algebra15 (17)representations, computationally, straightforwardsuper-interesting, three-dimensional
Developmental Math15 (17)interchangeably, straightforwardpseudo-remembered
Geometry15 (17)straightforwardthree-dimensional
Statistics15 (17)underestimating, straightforwardthree-dimensional
Pre-Calculus16 (16)counterclockwisedownward-opening
Probability16disproportionate
Trigonometry16counterclockwise
Physics16 (17)counterbalancing, counterclockwisemulti-dimensional, three-dimensional
Differential Equations16 (20)pseudodefinitionintimidating-looking
Linear Algebra16 (20)conversationally, perpendicularity, counterclockwiseeasy-to-compute-with
Arithmetic17compartmentalized, 10-multiplication
Calculus17 (18)differentiability, parameterizationsconvoluted-looking, three-dimensionals
Chemistry18 (23)oversimplificationstraight-from-the-udder
Biology22 (25)phosphoglyceraldehydessodium-potassium-chlorine
Organic Chemistry24 (29)bromochlorofluoromethane, methylpropylcyclopentanen-methyl-n-propyl-propanamide

As one might predict, the longest words are all chemical names, including hyphens allows for longer chemical names (I don't think that sodium-potassium-chlorine should be hyphenated). Another point to notes is that the most common long words are 'straightforward', 'counterclockwise' and 'three-dimensional'. There are a couple of interesting hyphenated phrases, most interesting of which is 'straight-from-the-udder'; I must find out what that's about.

Naturally, after this analysis I had to watch the videos with the longest words. In doing so, I actually found a longer word: 5-ethoxy-1,2-dimethylcyclohexanamine. Sal even says "This was probably one of the longest words we've used in naming", and it would have been except that in the subtitles, there is no hyphen between the ethoxy and the 1,2, perhaps because the word is split over two lines.

For reference, n-methyl-n-propyl-propanamide is in Amides, Anhydrides, Esters and Acyl Chlorides; bromochlorofluoromethane is in Chiral Examples 1.

Bromochlorofluoromethane.png

Comments (1)

Colin Reeder on 26 Oct 2013, 11:25 p.m.

I found the one with straight-from-the-udder: http://youtu.be/3ROWXs3jtQU

He says it at about 1:07.