Floccinaucinihilipilification Quotes

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, floccinaucinihilipilification is the second longest word in the English language.

Sir Walter Scott (Journal, March 8, 1826, with ‘pauci’ as the second element rather than ‘nauci’):

[... I] have arrived at a flocci-pauci-nihili-pili-fication of money, and I thank Shenstone for inventing that long word.

The comic strip Zippy the Pinhead (March 14, 1996):

“Do you think I may be too quick to find fault with things and people, Zippy?”
“Yeh.”
“Th’ ‘floccinaucinihilipilification’ process.”
“Th’ what?”
“Floccinaucinihilipilification!! It means ‘the estimation of something as valueless’!”
“You’ve been randomly reading th’ dictionary, haven’t you?”
“Yes. That and my natural tendency toward antifloccinaucinihilipilification!!”

Jesse Helms (1999), in reference to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty:

“I note your distress at my floccinaucinihilipilification of the CTBT.” (Helms claims he learned the word from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan) [1]

Mike McCurry (1995), United States President Bill Clinton’s press secretary:

“But if you — as a practical matter of estimating the economy, the difference is not great. There’s a little bit of floccinaucinihilipilification going on here.” [2]

Robert A. Heinlein, in The Puppet Masters (1951):

“Digby was a floccinaucinihilipilificator at heart — which is an eight-dollar word meaning a joker who does not believe in anything he can’t bite.”

Robert A. Heinlein, in The Number of the Beast (1980):

“Sharpie darling, you are a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Certainly! Means you’re so sharp you spot the slightest flaw.”
I kept quiet. It was possible that Zebadiah meant it as a compliment. Just barely- “Maybe I’d better check it in a dictionary.”
“By all means, dear-after you are off watch.” (I dismissed the matter. Merriam Microfilm was all we had aboard and Aunt Hilda would not find that word in anything less than the O.E.D.)

Bob Black, in “A Study In Floccinaucinihilipilification”[3]

slams libertarians Murray Bookchin and Timothy Balash