The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 7, February 13, 2005, Article 15

LONGEST WORD ON A COIN?

Martin Purdy writes: "My entry would be "RIGSBANKSKILLING"
(Denmark, 16 letters), which is so long it's usually split into two
lines on the coins in question. Otherwise, here are some 14-letter
options: BUNDESREPUBLIK (Germany), RZECZPOSPOLITA
(Poland, though that's probably 12 letters in the Polish way of
counting them), CESKOSLOVENSKA (Czechoslovakia) and
NEPKÖZTARSASAG (Hungary).

If you throw the field open to medals and banknotes, there will
doubtless be other, longer contenders, but if I start looking for
them I will never get any work done! "

Neil Shafer writes: "With regard to the longest word on a
numismatic item, I'll play Can You Top This with this one-word
name of a Welsh town on a British Railways Board railroad
platform 3d ticket:
LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH
There are 58 letters! What I'd like to know is the reason for
such a long name. There must have been some logic behind
the formation of this and other long Welsh names; perhaps it
had to do with those individuals who lived there and who lent
their names to this possible conglomerate. Does anyone
know the answer?

[My answer is longer, but because of an added hyphen and
one additional letter, which may be due to a typo in one or the
other version. It's the same Welsh place name. I found it on the
Squished.com website that was mentioned last week. on their
"Penny of the Month" page for February. The page discusses
the origin of the name.

"What the heck is 
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch,
and what is it doing on a squished coin?

Well, it started back in the mid-19th century when a small
town in Wales (whose national symbol is a red dragon)
was looking to put itself on the map. And what better way
to do so than a show of civic pride? Knowing that folks are
bound to head for anywhere that claims to have the world's
longest place name, a local tailor decided that his village
should capture that title. The name roughly translates into:
The Church of St. Mary in the hollow of the white hazels
near a rapid whirlpool and the church of St. Tysilio near
a red cave." Fortunately for residents -- and the post
office -- the name usually is shortened to Llanfairpwll or
Llanfair P.G."

Full Story

-Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum