1. What is the longest English word that can be formed using the letters A to M?

2. What is the longest English word that can be formed using the letters N to Z?

Notes:

(a) It is not necessary to use all the letters within the specified range. A given letter can occur more than once within a word.

(b) Words involving proper nouns, acronyms or abbreviations is not permissible.

(c) None of the generated words can be hyphenated. For example, words like A-bomb, X-Ray etc. are not allowed.

(In reply to re(2): solution by Dej Mar)

Dej,

My point was directed more to hyphenation than the fascinating de/dee controversy, on which after further checking I agree with you.  Concise OED has fiddle-de-dee, and Gutenburg confirms that spelling in the exchange between Alice and the Red Queen. The only other place I have found it in a literary textual context is p548/5 of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, also in the fiddle-de-dee version.  Montgomery always uses the fiddle-dee-dee version in GWTW (also in the movie script) and is thus exceptional. But the important thing is that the expression is always hyphenated, see (c) above.

But I of course accept that there are always variants.

 

Posted by broll on 2012-03-06 06:50:12