The world s longest sentence 5237 words by mark virtue 1980, aged 15 once upon a while back there was an ambitious contortionist who made up his mind he would try to conquer the twentyseventh highest dead volcano on neptune, with his tongue secretly hiding behind his overweight postmans swedish hifi set and the shoelaces of his persian ugh boots stubbornly caught on the corner of the. Enjoy reading and rereading them, and please leave your favorite. However, joyces record has recently been surpassed. When william faulkner set the world record for writing the. The word palindrome comes from the greek word palindromos, which is a compound word from palin, again, and dramein, to run that means running back again, which is just what it ref. An old priest listens to the contradictory confessions of. Though the record has been broken, faulkners legacy lives on.
What is the longest sentence in english literature. In short, go is the shortest sentence in the english language that also has the longest implied meaning. The novel actually consists of two sentences, the final one a mere five words long. The purity of his judicial character, while on the bench. The world of literature is full of examples of sprawling monologues and multiline. Past editions of the guinness book of world records have listed this record. Top 10 longest novels in the english languagetop 10 longest novels in the english languagei love a long book that i can really get into, so i decided to compile a list of the longest novels ever written.
One of the longest sentences in american literature is in william faulkners absalom, absalom. According to the total book of south african records, the longest word in the language is. This is a list of longest prison sentences ever given to a single person, worldwide. In his novel, ulysses, the character molly bloom has a. William faulkner was featured in 1983 guinness book of world records for this 1,288word sentence from absalom, absalom. Best examples of palindromes in the english language. It is supposedly the worlds longest published novel in english at 2. This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. The sentence is composed of 1,288 words in the 1951. Traditionally, the longest sentence in english literature has been said to be a sentence in ullyses by james joyce, which clocks in at 4,391 words. Proust produced the first volume of his volume masterpiece in 1912 it was first published in 19. The coppell, texas, writer has been making a run at the record books with his stillgrowing story of a christhaunted filmmaker who believes he is called on. It is the extraordinary sensory quality of his prose that enabled faulkner to get away with writing the longest sentence in literature, at least according to the 1983 guinness book of world records, a passage from absalom, absalom.
Faulkners longest sentencesmack in the middle of absalom, absalom. The books, which easily get the readers dizzy, exhausted, or maybe even bored to death while following, because of the amazing length of the sentences. Most of the listings here as the longest word in japanese are simply made up for fun kind of combinations of wellestablished words. The worlds longest sentence 5237 words by mark virtue 1980, aged 15 once upon a while back there was an ambitious contortionist who made up his mind he would try to conquer the twentyseventh highest dead volcano on neptune, with his tongue secretly hiding behind his overweight postmans swedish hifi set and the shoelaces of his persian ugh boots stubbornly caught on the corner of the. Im looking for the longest sentence in prousts remembrance of things past. Contenders 1,287 words the guinness book of world records has an entry for what it claims is the longest sentence in english, from william faulkners novel absalom, absalom. What is the longest sentence in literature answers. The longest place name in the world porangahau, new. The title translates to remembrance of things past. Often cited for being the longest sentence ever written is by author james joyce. Marienbad my love, the worlds longest novel, that tops 17 million words and also sets new records for the worlds longest word, sentence and book title.
Relaxing meditation music for deep sleep with binaural waves duration. The longest sentence in the world is in the sanskrit language. One of the longest sentences in american literature is in william faulkner s absalom, absalom. A book s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book. At that point, i think we can safely say that we have produced the worlds longest book. Dr subramonian, principal, dr r v arts and science college, karamadai, about 25 km from coimbatore. Search for the term worlds longest word and you probably find pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis the scientific name for a lung disease commonly.
The chemical formula for the protein otherwise known as titin runs to 189,819 letters, but whether this constitutes a word is. Read that onetime longest sentence in literature, all 1,288 words of it, below. They are simply five fine examples of the very long sentence in literature. However, although x contains only one orthographic symbol, in terms of sound it consists of three segments. The words of the apostle paul serve to lift us to a place of which we can only dream. Just exactly like father if father had known as much about it the night before i went out there as he did the day after i came back thinking mad impotent old man. Listed are instances where people have been sentenced to jail terms in excess of a human lifetime. Yeah yeah oh yeah, it must be hard despite the limitations of our imagination, this is the first of four volumes where blooms the worlds longest sentence. A compendium of useless information, published in 1975. Seeking an entry in the guinness book of world records, a college principal on monday released a book with the longest title of 1022 words with 4805 characters and no space. Here, he definitively answers the ageold question of how long the longest book in the world could be. The sixteenth volume of the blah story by nigel tomm was published in 2008. When william faulkner set the world record for writing the longest.
A sentence often claimed to be the longest sentence ever written is in molly blooms soliloquy in the james joyce novel ulysses 1922, which contains a sentence of 3,687 words. The source most often given for this, if a source is given, is timothy fullertons triviata. The longest sentence is pages long and the size of each page is that of a harry potter book page. As i did more research, i realized that there were many issues i had to take into consideration when deciding what to include on this list. The yenisey, he learned, is the worlds fifthlongest river, flowing 5,500 kilometers 3,300 miles from western mongolia to the arctic circle, and had never been run from source to. I once had a copy of a sentence which used the word which about eight times in a row but was grammatically correct.
I recall being stunned by one in some novel of his but i cant say now for certain which one it was. Top 10 longest novels in the english language listverse. The longest word in the english language leaving literature to one side for a moment is a staggering 189,819 letters long. If you write a book according to the usual criteria, one person may like it, the other may dislike it, but when you write ten volumes, no one will say that the book is in eight. Note that many national legislations worldwide do not allow for such sentences. Shortest comprehensive sentence in english english. The longest sentences in literature and why they work. The writer henry james has some quite long sentences. I cut it out of whatever magazine i was reading and saved it, but its long since been lost. The longest palindromic english word, according to the guinness book of world records. Armen shekoyan, an armenian writer committed to producing the worlds longest novel, says.
On norvigs first try he was able to make a 15,9 word palindrome. According to a 1983 guinness book of records, this monster once qualified as literatures longest at 1,288 words, but that record has long been surpassed, in english at least, by jonathan coes the rotters club, which ends with a 33pagelong,955 word sentence. The profoundly influential volume work contains 9,609,000 characters, with each letter and space counting as one character. Longest english sentences and cormac mccarthy pedants. Since the sentence given is not necessarily equivalent to time served, see the.
So, if by shortest sentence, we mean shortest in terms of segments, then this word wouldnt do. Say an author announces that his or her next book will be the longest book in the world. You must understand if the connecting particle no is used in the combination, then its a combinations of nouns. The examples of longest words within the agglutinative languages section may be nowhere near close to the longest possible word in said language, but is instead a popular example of a textheavy word. Literature is full of stunning examples of looooooooooong sentences, both properly punctuated and not ahem. The booklength sentence is a literary genre in itself, though one few writers have had the nerve to tackle. What is the longest sentence in a published english. It will have a sentence that is over 50,000 words long, but does not come off as some novelty technique. Angus didnt know the yenisey river existed until he came across its name in a book while researching another trip. A million authors will give us a book that will run somewhere between 3 and 5 million pages in length. The longest sentence in literature the 1983 guinness book of world records is from the novel absalom, absalom by william faulkner.
The current record holder for the longest english sentence is jonathan coe for his staggering 33page,955word sentence in the rotters club, 2001. The sentence go has one consonant sound plus a diphthong g in southern standard british english and go. I think it would be of great benefit for us to look into these verses deeply and allow them to be at home in our hearts. Longest word in any language of the world literature. The guinness book of records bestowed the honor of longest english palindrome to detartrated, which is the preterit and past participle of detartrate, meaning to remove tartrates, or organic compounds. The longest english words to ever appear in literature.
The longest novel is artamene ou le grand cyrus, originally published 164954 in ten parts, each part in three volumes. Tirumalamba wrote this book describing the marriage of the king who ruled the vijayanagar empire then, emperor achyuta deva raya. In our translations, it is broken down into a few sentences and paragraphs so that we can track with paul, but sometimes it helpful just to let it wash over you in a one breath. The worlds longest sentence 5237 words mark virtue. Either way, it was the best of times, it was the tseb of times, it was a palindromic time. This word is from the sanskrit literary work varadambika parinaya champu of tirumalamba which dates back to 16th century. Traditionally, the longest sentence in english literature has been found in james joces ulysses which contains 4,391 words. Unlike most english palindromes, which usually have seven letters or fewer, this has 11.
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