How long can two words be if they make up a larger word (challenge)

Question

I came up with this little game. Basically we have to write a word using small caps and big caps so that the small caps write a word and the big caps write a word (in their original order), for example:

STRINginG, the words are STRING and gin. ( or STringING with STING and ring)

MoneY, the words are MY and one.

THEoreM, the words are THEM and ore.

The score of each word is the length of the smallest word.

So STRINginG has score $3$, MoneY has score $2$ and THEoreM has score $3$.

However I do not want to accept the cases in which all the big caps are together. So things like BUTTERfly gentleMAN or CARrot are not allowed.

I would appreciate a lot if you could give me examples of words with high scores (the more the merrier), something especially awesome would be if the words could have related meanings. Thank you in advance.

When wording a question saying that BUTTERfly is an example of what you are looking for, but that BUTTERfly isn't... is poorly phrased. — NPSF3000, Jul 13 '15 at 08:50
'Course, you could easily make "Stringing" into a 4 with "STringING" - STING and ring. — Jez W, Jul 13 '15 at 13:13

pacoverflow · Answer 1 · 2015-07-12T22:16:52.357

10

A word with a score of 11:

REinstitutionALIZATION

A couple words with a score of 7:

COUNTERbalanceS
LIGHTheartedNESS

edited Jul 12 '15 at 22:16

answered Jul 12 '15 at 21:57

pacoverflow

15,204
2
55
94

1

Oh yeah, perhaps it would be better to ask both small and big caps not to be consecutive – Jul 12 '15 at 21:59
1

or not, that is fine. Although the more intertwined the better. – Jul 12 '15 at 22:00
2

Exactly it seems quite easy with the -s suffix. – Grzegorz Oledzki Jul 12 '15 at 22:00

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 12 '15 at 18:12

9

I have a word with a score of 5

TrIeNnIaLlY.

Made up of the words TINILY and renal with alternating letters.

answered Jul 12 '15 at 18:12

CodeNewbie

11,753
2
45
87

Oh, that's high. – Jul 12 '15 at 18:13
1

Credit goes to JLee for teaching me this word. I was supremely impressed with the length of the word when I read it in his innovative Triad Phrase question. And the moment I read this challenge, I remembered this fantastic word. – CodeNewbie Jul 12 '15 at 18:20

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 13 '15 at 02:05

6

Here's a score of 12.

The longest non-coined word in the English language is

antidisestablishmentarianism

It can be split up into

ANTI disestablishment ARIANISM

ANTI-ARIANISM (12) and disestablishment (16)

Some examples of the exact word anti-arianism:

An essay on Arianism
A subject tag
The book "The Theological Anthropology of Eustathius of Antioch"
The book "Theophilus of Alexandria and the First Origenist Controversy: Rhetoric and Power"

answered Jul 13 '15 at 02:05

JLee

18,202
2
55
172

2

Antidisestablishmentarianism doesn't have a hyphen, but all instances of anti-Arianism do (they also include a capital A). I would think this would not meet the expectations of the puzzle because of this. – Ian MacDonald Jul 13 '15 at 11:51
1

@IanMacDonald One option is to verify this opinion with the OP, since it wasn't specified in the puzzle (even before down-voting, maybe :) ) – JLee Jul 13 '15 at 15:01

Grzegorz Oledzki · Answer 4 · 2015-07-12T21:59:33.700

5

Submitting two NBA-themed words:

PACEmakeRs

and

TRAILblazerS

with a score of 5 and 6. Although I feel a bit abusing the consecutive caps rule with the simple -s suffix.

edited Jul 12 '15 at 21:59

answered Jul 12 '15 at 21:54

Grzegorz Oledzki

151
5

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:22

Score 8

The highest-scoring word in the Wolfram dictionary is:

interrelatedness

Which consists of:

INTERRElateDness

and

interreLATEdNESS

Found using:

n = 8;
wl = ToLowerCase@DictionaryLookup[Repeated[_, {n}]];
wl2 = ToLowerCase@DictionaryLookup[Repeated[_, {2 n}]];
subwords = 
  Cases[Table[
    w -> Select[wl, 
      LongestCommonSequence[w, #] == # && 
        LongestCommonSubsequence[w, #] != # &], {w, wl2}], 
   Pattern[p, _ -> {_, __}]];
Cases[subwords, (w_ -> {___, a_, ___, b_, ___}) /; (Sort[
      Characters[w]] == Sort[Characters[a]~Join~Characters[b]]) :> {w,
    a, b}]

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 12 '15 at 20:50

0

I can only guess you meant a similar rule for all small caps not being together. Otherwise you could go with:

DAYdreamING

with the score of 5 and a word play on your nickname.

answered Jul 12 '15 at 20:50

Grzegorz Oledzki

151
5

2

I never knew daying was a word….? – AJL Jul 12 '15 at 21:01
2

that example is fine. But DAYING is not a word. – Jul 12 '15 at 21:03
Me neither, especially not being an English speaker myself. I only found https://www.wordnik.com/words/daying but that might not count as a proper dictionary. – Grzegorz Oledzki Jul 12 '15 at 21:05

Grzegorz Oledzki · Answer 7 · 2015-07-12T21:33:32.617

0

How about:

DauntING

or

PARallelS

which both give a score of 4

The latter is again a bit controversial as it uses a less common spelling of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allele

edited Jul 12 '15 at 21:33

answered Jul 12 '15 at 21:18

Grzegorz Oledzki

151
5

score -1 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 13 '15 at 02:41

-1

Here's a score of 16, if you can accept both words.

AultramicroscopicSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (38 letters)

Explanation

The longest English word that is in a major dictionary is

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters)

When broken down, that is:

Pneumono ultra microscopic silico volcano coniosis

where the first part, pneumono, is a medical prefix that specifies that the disease is lung-related or pulmonary-related.

So, removing it from the 45-letter monster above, we get the word

ultramicroscopic silicovolcanoconiosis (without the space)

Now, the prefix "a" means "not" (e.g.: atypical means not typical). So, adding the prefix a to the word above gives us

A ultramicroscopic SILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS

That's ultramicroscopic and ASILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (a form of coniosis that is NOT caused by volcano dust or silicon exposure.)

answered Jul 13 '15 at 02:41

JLee

18,202
2
55
172

2

-1. You can't add "a" to any word you like. I think the questioner meant real words only. – Ypnypn Jul 13 '15 at 03:23
@Ypnypn Thanks for explaining your down-vote. In your opinion, what makes something a word? Is it being in the dictionary? any dictionary? or being in common spoken use? or being in a medical journal? or being considered real by some organization, such as Guinness World Records, or a Puzzle Club? or what? – JLee Jul 13 '15 at 03:28
1

@IanMacDonald I see you have the most up-voted answer on this question about adding the prefix a to words. How does your response apply to coined medical words, like this one? Also, any other thoughts? – JLee Jul 13 '15 at 03:34
1

@Ypnypn From what I can tell so far, the prefix a can be applied to any word with a Greek origin. So, the question becomes, "Is coniosis of Greek origin?" I do not know. – JLee Jul 13 '15 at 03:46
2

+1 for an impressive job defending your answer. Coniosis comes from konis which is of Greek origin: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pneumoconiosis – pacoverflow Jul 13 '15 at 04:19
@pacoverflow However ultra- is from latin. I think negating ultramicroscopic would be macroscopic. – Taemyr Jul 13 '15 at 07:21
Arbitrarily adding a- is incorrect in many cases; consider aaaaaultra-. The opposite of ultra- (which means extreme) is to simply not have a prefix (ultramicroscopic becomes microscopic). Aside from all that, however, silicovolcanoconiosis does not appear by itself in the dictionary, so your answer to this question does not follow the spirit of the puzzle. – Ian MacDonald Jul 13 '15 at 11:00
In any case, wouldn't the prefix there have to be "an-" because of the vowel at the start? "Aerobic", for instance, stems from Greek, and its negation is "anaerobic", rather than "aaerobic" (admittedly not that well-versed in linguistics but I'd assume that's how it would go) – Jez W Jul 13 '15 at 14:09
@pacoverflow yeah i know. that's why i also notified him by replying to his comment on another question. – JLee Jul 13 '15 at 14:45
1

@IanMacDonald OK, thanks. Also, the logic behind silicovolcanoconiosis being a word was that Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis IS a word, and since all the prefixes added seem to exist only to make the rest of the word more specific, then it seems logical to me that we can remove them and still have a valid word, just without the added meaning given by the prefix(es). No? – JLee Jul 13 '15 at 14:51
@JezW You bring up a great point. I don't have a good reply to it! – JLee Jul 13 '15 at 14:53
An- would be the correct Greek prefix to use for a word beginning with a vowel. Since this particular word contains both Latin and Greek prefixes, the negation may be more correctly anti-. However, as I said before, the negation of the prefix ultra-, in this case, is to simply remove it. – Ian MacDonald Jul 13 '15 at 17:29

How long can two words be if they make up a larger word (challenge)

8 Answers8

Score 8

Explanation

Linked