The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 8, February 20, 2005, Article 21

LONG WORDS ON NUMISMATIC ITEMS

Jørgen Sømod writes: "RIGSBANKSKILLING is a long and
Danish word, but spelled in German as seen on some Danish
coins minted 1816-1939 is it longer REICHSBANKSCHILLING."

Ron Haller-Williams writes: "The best I've yet found on a COIN
is BODENSEESCHIFFAHRT (500 Schillinge, Austria #2967,
18 letters, undivided). This would be even longer if German
didn't have the rule that where a triple F occurs in combination
(e.g. SCHIFF-FAHRT), it is shortened to a double F. There
appear to be three companies involved in shipping across
Lake Constance, one each from Austria, Germany and
Switzerland. Does anybody know of a medal relating to the that
last-mentioned? That would be the Schweizerische
Bodenseeschiffahrtsgesellschaft A.G. which includes a 31-letter
word (though possibly hyphenated).

A close runner-up is LANDESAUSSTELLUNG
(Switzerland #43, 17 letters).

And the longest English-language one I have spotted is
SESQUICENTENNIAL (USA Columbia half dollar,
1936, 16 letters), which equals Martin's most ambitious offering.

On banknotes, Germany does better:
18 letters: FÜNFHUNDERTTAUSEND (500000) e.g. #88, #922
20 letters: DARLEHENKASSENSCHEIN #47 thru #62; R122 thru R134
and surpasses this on military payment certificates:
21 letters: BEHELFSZAHLUNGSMITTEL M31 thru M37
If the hyphen is allowed, Hungary has:
27 characters: OESTERREICHISCH-UNGARISCHEN #29 thru #66

Regarding, "What the heck is
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch,
Ron writes:

"I'd suggest that the hyphen, which does NOT appear in
the name ON the elongate at See Elongate
 (the page you cite) or Image
is there for two reasons:

1. People expect a double-L, but might reckon more to
be a keying error;

2. For those who know how to pronounce the double-L
in Welsh, i.e. like a harsher version of English "HL", this
makes it clear how to pronounce what is probably the
world's THIRD-longest placename.

I'll make the additional letter clearer by capitalizing it:
LlanfairpwllgwyngyllGogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
This brings the count up to the 58 that Neil claims.

I, being Welsh, would however only acknowledge 51 letters!
This is because "CH" and "LL" are individual letters of the Welsh
alphabet, which begins A, B, C, CH, D, DD, E, F, FF, G, ...

The name you will find on road maps is the official one,
consisting of just the first 20 (or 17!) letters, i.e.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, rather than as shown on the cited page:

(a) Locally referred to as "Llanfair P.G."
(b) Both "Llanfairpwll Station" and "Llanfairpwll Post Office"
exist, but (according to my postcodes database) they are
in the postal town of "LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLL, Gwynedd".

We are beaten by:

1. A hill in New Zealand called
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu

2. The name of Bangkok (Krungthep) in Thai -
Krungthepmahanakonbowornratanakosinmahintarayudyayamahadiloponoparatanarajthaniburiromudomraj-
niwesmahasatarnamornpimarnavatarsatitsakattiyavisanukamphrasit
(See More Information for both the above.)

3. Finally, at Myths
one sees the assertion that "The twentieth-century Welsh tourist industry
has invented an even longer, and more nonsensical, one to beat it 
(Gorsafawddachaidraigodanheddogleddolonpenrhynareurdraethceredigion,
66 letters of very bad fake Welsh) ..."

[The breadth of knowledge of our E-Sylum readers
(E-Sylumites?) never ceases to amaze. I believe it was in
his film Annie Hall, where Woody Allen's character is
standing in a movie line being annoyed by a nearby man
going on and on about the works of Marshall McLuhan.
Allen gets into a heated argument with him. Exasperated,
he finally says, "Wait here." Then he goes behind a nearby
movie poster and pulls out a man who who turns out to be
Marshall McLuhan himself. And McLuhan says to
the guy: "You're totally wrong. You know NOTHING
about my work." Allen turns to the camera and says
"Don't you wish real life could be this way?" Sigh, yes.
And, occasionally, it is. We just so happened to have
a Welshman waiting in the wings to set us straight on
spelling and pronunciation. Now wait here while I get
the top numismatists from New Zealand and Thailand to
testify that the #1 and #2 lengthiest place names have
never appeared on a numismatic item. Yet. I can hear
those elongated cent dies being cut already....

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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