This is the memory palace. I'm Nate Tameo.

There is a word in English that is still alive, that is spoken ever, merely because it is long.

Antidisistapolismentarianism is the longest word in English language that

isn't a scientific term or wasn't coined merely in an attempt to make a longer one.

And it is a very English word rooted in very English politics to describe the

factual opposition to those who in the 19th century sought to strip the Anglican

Church's status as the state church of England, Ireland, and Wales.

An obscure struggle for power settled long ago. It is a word that would have been

relegated with little lament to brief mentions and brief passages in very English

thesey's gathering dust and very English libraries where it not ripe for rolling out as a fun fact,

or issuing as a spelling challenge. But despite its length, 12 syllables, two more letters

than the English alphabet itself. It's not that hard to spell. You just can't be afraid of it.

Just need to trust your knowledge of the rules of English pronunciation and stay focused,

so you can keep your place and not lose your head as you work your way through,

building the word letter by letter by letter. But that itself can be hard,

especially if you are standing in front of your classroom or on some spelling bee stage,

maybe a number or a plackard on a piece of yarn strung around your neck.

Or if you are Gloria Lacherman. 12 years old, a student at Booker T. Washington Middle School

in a struggling part of West Baltimore, wearing a paleo-address, not that people could tell

in their black and white televisions, though they could tell she was African-American,

as she appeared on the $64,000 question. The most watched show in America there in 1935,

less than a year after Brown v. the Board of Education, less than a year before Rosa Parks would be

...