The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Something that struck my curiosity, while I was improving the search—what’s the longest phonograph-related word of which you are aware?

Based on playing with the search a bit more since the changes, this can include hyphenated names such as Deutsche-Grammophon (even though I know this is a poor example because they do not hyphenate their name).

Sadly, the best that I can come up with (off of the top of my head) is ‘orthophonic’, which is a measly 11 characters.

Can anyone come up with something longer than 20 characters that is a real word or name? (And if not, please post your best attempts at beating my 11-letter entry.)

— MordEth

'Longestplayingphone'. No kidding. Only 19 letters, though . . . and no Q's or X's!
John M

JohnM wrote:'Longestplayingphone'. No kidding. Only 19 letters, though . . . and no Q's or X's!

John,

How do you expect to win at Scrabble™ with that word? ...surely there’s something with an ‘x’ or a ‘q’ in it...or even a ‘z’...

Even ‘Zon-o-phon-o-recordings’ is 19 characters if you don’t count the hyphens.

Hopefully, though, I’m right that (even in German) 20 characters is long enough for any real words.

— MordEth

If you mean the longest phono-related word for scrabble, oh that's easy. Benzoxycamphors is an agent used to stabilize the metallic soap wax used to make wax cylinder records.


If I remember correctly, in scrabble you can't use any words that exceed 15 characters in length. Also, its not the length of the word, it's the value associated with the letters. For example Zax is a short, high value word.

wait, are we limiting this to trade words? or more loosely associated chemical names? and do hyphenated terms count as one word or two?

brianu wrote:wait, are we limiting this to trade words? or more loosely associated chemical names? and do hyphenated terms count as one word or two?

Brian,

To answer your questions in order: No, no, and one (as from playing with the search feature, it seems to treat hyphenated words as a single word).

So, ideally—not only can we learn some new terminology, I can also make additional refinements to the search, and continue to work to improve the site for everyone.

— MordEth

Kinemicrophonographically (25 characters)

The Kinemicrophonograph, devised by the French inventors Eugen Pereire and and M. Jaubert for the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, combined Edison's kinematograph and François Dussaud's microphonograph (a system for electrically recording and reproducing sound).

Deutsche-Edison-Phonographen-Gesellschaft (38 characters - at least)

The above Co., owner of Edison's German phonograph patents, was founded in 1895 in Cologne.

Allow me to coin the word Phonographocracization, which refers to the act of establishing a government based on the rule of phonographs.

And if you are opposed to this new form of government, one might say that you are a partisan of antiphonographocracization.



Rocky

Starkton wrote:The Kinemicrophonograph, devised by the French inventors Eugen Pereire and and M. Jaubert for the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, combined Edison's kinematograph and François Dussaud's microphonograph (a system for electrically recording and reproducing sound).

Starkton,

Very interesting. Sadly, there is apparently no information to be easily found about it online—Google returns zero results (as does Yahoo!).

Starkton wrote:Deutsche-Edison-Phonographen-Gesellschaft (38 characters - at least)

The above Co., owner of Edison's German phonograph patents, was founded in 1895 in Cologne.

I figured that if we were going to have a winner for long hyphenated name, it would most likely be in German or another European language. Right now, I’ve expanded the max-length to 25 characters, and the Deutsche-Edison-Phonographen-Gesellschaft company can be found if you search one or all of the parts of their name (e.g. “Deutsche Edison Phonographen Gesellschaft”).

Thanks for sharing the information on both.

— MordEth

MordEth wrote:The Kinemicrophonograph ...
Very interesting. Sadly, there is apparently no information to be easily found about it online—Google returns zero results (as does Yahoo!).

Still, most printed sources (in this case "Deutsche Uhrmacherzeitung") cannot be utilized through Google.