or (; en, Association for Subordinate Officials of the Main Maintenance Building of the Danube Steam Shipping Electrical Services) was an alleged suborganization of the
(DDSG) in pre-
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, a
shipping
Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting Commodity, commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it h ...
company for transporting passengers and
cargo
Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...
on the
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
. The DDSG still exists today in the form of the now-private companies DDSG-Blue Danube Schifffahrt GmbH (passenger transport) and the DDSG-Cargo GmbH. However, there is no evidence that the ever existed.
As a compound word
' is a compound word that serves as an example of the virtually unlimited
compounding
In the field of pharmacy, compounding (performed in compounding pharmacies) is preparation of a custom formulation of a medication to fit a unique need of a patient that cannot be met with commercially available products. This may be done for me ...
of
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s that is possible in many
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
. According to the 1996 ''
Guinness Book of World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
'', it is the
longest word
The longest word in any given language depends on the word formation rules of each specific language, and on the types of words allowed for consideration.
Agglutinative languages allow for the creation of long words via compounding. Words co ...
published in the
German language
German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Ita ...
.
The
German spelling reform of 1996
The German orthography reform of 1996 (') was a change to German spelling and punctuation that was intended to simplify German orthography and thus to make it easier to learn, without substantially changing the rules familiar to users of the lan ...
abolished the rule that compound words with triple consonants coalesce them into double consonants. The reform affects
noun adjunct
In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that grammatical modifier, modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun funct ...
', itself a compound of ''Schiff'' ("ship") and ''Fahrt'' ("transportation"), which is now spelled ' (with three ""s). A modern form of spelling would use 80 letters, '. However, as the compound is (allegedly) a historical name, the original spelling with 79 letters is kept. That compound word contains the uncommon plural '; ' ("electricity") is normally used only in the singular.
Long compound words are used sparsely in German conversation, but considerably more often than in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
. A pre-
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
Danube steamship captain could be referred to as ' more naturally than with the somewhat contrived title ' ("Danube steamboating association captain"). According to the 1995 ''Guinness Book of World Records'', the longest German word in everyday usage is ' ("legal protection insurance companies") at 39 letters, narrowly beating the description of
HDLC
High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC) is a bit-oriented code-transparent synchronous data link layer protocol developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The standard for HDLC is ISO/IEC 13239:2002.
HDLC provides both c ...
as a '.
Alternative word with 121 letters is unofficial clone of this word: "Oberdonaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschafthauptsitzeingangsbereichlufttemperatur"
Etymology
See also
*
*
Longest word in English
The identity of the longest word in the English language depends upon the definition of what constitutes a word in the English language, as well as how length should be compared.
Words may be derived naturally from the language's roots or forme ...
*
Noun adjunct
In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that grammatical modifier, modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun funct ...
References
External links
A Collection of Word Oddities and TriviaDDSG-Cargo GmbHDDSG-Blue Danube Schifffahrt GmbH
{{DEFAULTSORT:Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitatenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft
German words and phrases
Long words