Are the Germans Shrinking Their Words?

The Germans have removed the presently existing longest word from the lexicon:

Geschwindigkeitsbeschränkungen? That’s a speed limit — which you’ll probably pass before you have a chance to sound it out. Want to foil hackers? Trying setting your password to Handschuhschneeballwerfer, or a slang term for coward.

But eventually, things went too far, even for the Germans.

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz — a 63-letter word that describes a “law for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling” — has been kicked out of the Deutsch lexicon, thanks to the law’s repeal in a regional parliament.

But perhaps it’s not such a big loss: Because the word was used so infrequently, it wasn’t in dictionaries. The longest German word in the country ‘s official records is the 39-letter Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften, which is an insurance company that provides legal protection. (English actually beats that record, with the 45-letter pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.)

Our longest word? Twoallbeefpatties….