There have been several claims for the 'longest sentence in the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

' revolving around the longest printed sentence. Sentences can be made arbitrarily long in various ways. One method is successive iterations, such as "Someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that nobody thinks that...," while another method is combining shorter

clause In language, a clause is a Constituent (linguistics), constituent or Phrase (grammar), phrase that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic Predicate (grammar), predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject (grammar), ...

s. Sentences can also be extended by

recursively Recursion occurs when the definition of a concept or process depends on a simpler or previous version of itself. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in m ...

embedding clauses one into another, such as :"The mouse ran away." :"The mouse that the cat hit ran away." :... This also highlights the difference between

linguistic performance The term linguistic performance was used by Noam Chomsky in 1960 to describe "the actual use of language in concrete situations". It is used to describe both the Language production, production, sometimes called '' parole'', as well as the compr ...

and

linguistic competence In linguistics, linguistic competence is the system of unconscious knowledge that one has when they know a language. It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which includes all other factors that allow one to use one's language in practic ...

, because the language can support more variation than can reasonably be created or recorded. As a result, one

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

textbook concludes that, in theory, "there is no longest English sentence."

Exceptionally long sentences in print

* '' An Accommodating Advertisement and an Awkward Accident'', the 427-word winning entry in ''

Tit-Bits ''Tit-Bits from all the interesting Books and Newspapers of the World'', more commonly known as ''Tit-Bits'' and later as ''Titbits'', was a British weekly magazine founded by George Newnes, a founding figure in popular journalism, on 22 Octo ...

'' Magazine's Christmas 1884 competition for "the longest sensible sentence, every word of which begins with the same letter". *Molly Bloom's soliloquy in the

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

novel ''

Ulysses Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus, a legendary Greek hero recognized for his intelligence and cunning. He is famous for his long, adventurous journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, as narrated in Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses may also refer ...

'' (1922) contains a sentence of 4,391 words. *

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...

's ''

Absalom, Absalom! ''Absalom, Absalom!'' is a Southern Gothic novel by the American author William Faulkner, first published in 1936. Taking place before, during, and after the American Civil War, it focuses on the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a plantation own ...

'' (1936) contains a sentence composed of 1,288 words (in the 1951 Random House version) *

Jonathan Coe Jonathan Coe (; born 19 August 1961) is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, '' What a ...

's 2001 novel '' The Rotters' Club'' has a sentence with 13,955 words. It was inspired by

Bohumil Hrabal Bohumil Hrabal (; 28 March 1914 – 3 February 1997) was a Czech Republic, Czech writer, often named among the best Czech writers of the 20th century. Early life Hrabal was born in Židenice (suburb of Brno) on 28 March 1914, in what was then ...

's ''

Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age ''Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age'' () is a 1964 novel by the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal. It tells the story of a man who recounts various events from his past, and in particular his love life. The novel is written in one long sentence. ...

'': a

Czech language Czech ( ; ), historically known as Bohemian ( ; ), is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group, written in Latin script. Spoken by over 12 million people including second language speakers, it serves as the official language of the ...

novel written in one long sentence. * '' Solar Bones'' by Mike McCormack is written as one sentence It won the 2016 Goldsmith's prize for experimental fiction, was longlisted for the Booker in 2017 and won the 2018

International Dublin Literary Award The International Dublin Literary Award (), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. It promotes excellence in world literature and is solely ...

. *''

Ducks, Newburyport ''Ducks, Newburyport'' is a 2019 novel by British author Lucy Ellmann. The novel is written in the stream of consciousness narrative style, and mostly consists of a single long sentence that lists the main character's thoughts over the course of ...

'' by

Lucy Ellmann Lucy Ellmann (born 18 October 1956) is an American-born British novelist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Biography Her first book, '' Sweet Desserts'', won the Guardian Fiction Prize. She is the daughter of the American biographer and literary c ...

, a finalist for the 2019

Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...

, runs more than a thousand pages, mostly consisting of a single sentence that is 426,100 words long * ''This Book Is the Longest Sentence Ever Written and Then Published'' (2020), by humor writer Dave Cowen, consists of one sentence that runs for 111,111 words, and is a

stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. It is usually in the form of an interior monologue which ...

memoir

References

{{reflist English grammar Sentence Sentence Literature records

Exceptionally long sentences in print

See also

References