10 syllable word

[weecalf]

Does anyone know  a ten syllabled word

[guyaman]

hello weecalf. how about antidisestablishmentarianism?

[guyaman]

sorry. i meant disestablishmentarianism!

[Marsh]

palaeoanthropologically

[Quizmonster]

Someone who does not accept the Catholic belief that the bread and wine are actually transformed into the body and blood of Christ is called an an/ti/tran/sub/stan/ti/a/tion/a/list. The slashes mark the syllables.

(Re the dis...and antidis...words above, one has 11 syllables and the other 9...at least they do the way I pronounce them. I suppose it depends on how one pronounces the 'ian' bit towards the end, whether as 'yan' or as in the name 'I/an'.)

[bernardo]

1 di

2 se

3 stab

4 lish

5 men

6 ta

7 ri

8 a

9 ni

10 sm

[Quizmonster]

As you can see from your first nine, B, a syllable requires a vowel or vowel sound such as 'y'. No such exists in 'sm'...or is this just a joke?

[jno]

I know what Quizmonster means, but I think there is a vowel sound - though not a written vowel  - at the end; the last syllable is pronounced zim. (So I also think chasm has two syllables, not one.) The vowel is an  indistinct noise - called a schwa in phonetic transcription, as I recall, represented by an inverted e. It's noticeably different from the way sm- is pronounced at the start of a word (small, for instance), which clearly isn't a separate syllable.

[Marsh]

In Chambers, prism is phonetically rendered as prizm.  Immediately below it, prison is represented by priz'n,
The inverted comma  behind the z shows that priz is the accented syllable.  Prizm has no inverted comma.  Chambers thinks that prison has two syllables and prism has one.  It does give chasm two syllables, using a schwa, but it also gives -ism and �asm (under -ism) only one. 

[jno]

That's interesting, Marsh - I've been sitting here muttering prism and prison to myself, and darned if I can hear any difference in the vowel sound - but maybe others do speak them differently? My New Oxford gives chasm with a schwa in brackets, indicating that it's optional (the aim is to record actual pronunciation, not ideal ones, so it's not saying either is right or wrong). So... I don't know. Better go with palaeoanthropologically! 

[Quizmonster]

I agree with Chambers, Marsh, but then I usually do. I don't hear a 'zim' at the end of the 'disest...' word either. I'm perfectly happy to "go with palaeoanthropologically", as you suggest, Jno, but antitransubstantiationalist fits the bill, too. So, can we "go with" it as well? Cheers

[bernardo]

I would definitely pronounce the schwa between the s and the m, particularly if I am enunciating the syllables distincly in order to count them. 

[Quizmonster]

OK...whatever we think of the schwas and yas...we've got at least two words that certainly provide answers to the question. Anyone got another which is more or less indisputable? Bernardo?

[landie]

does everyone know what a syllable is? dis/es/tab/lish/ment/ar/i/an/ism is only nine syllables as divided by /

[bernardo]

As I have already said, the "-ism" is two syllables because the "i" is one syllable, and the "-sm" (pronounced "zerm") is another syllable.

[landie]

sorry to disagree, ism is one syllable.

[bernardo]

The fact that "ism" is two syllables is a fact, not an opinion.  Therefore you might as well go and teach some goats to yodel backwards in Swahili rather than pretending that it's only one syllable.

[landie]

Sorry, my mistake, I was referring to the English language.