I was thinking what to write about and I started chatting with Bard. I asked him questions like what is the etymology of the word technology? Also, what is the largest number you can return? Then, how many questions do you get every second? The answer that piqued my interest was to the question, what is the longest non technical English word with the most number of unique letters? It is floccinaucinihilipilification and it means the estimation of something as worthless. Is Bard trying to tell me that my questions are worthless? I was taught that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers, Mister Bard.
Why would someone create such a bizarre word? Who would use this word? The word actually has an interesting etymology. A jocular coinage, apparently by pupils at Eton College combining a number of Latin word stems: floccus ("a wisp") + naucum ("a trifle") + nihilum ("nothing") + pilus ("a hair") + -fication. Have these students created a word that describes itself? A word that describes itself is called an autological word. Autological words can be a bit of a paradox, because they seem to defy logic. If a word describes itself, then how can it be accurate? And if it is not accurate, then how can it describe itself? Bard does not think this word is an autology though and it is debatable.
But what really has me writing this blog post is the question, are there more questions than answers? I am sure you have heard this some times before. No doubt there are many unanswered questions and questions we are yet to ask. But there are answers where we are looking for the questions. In my last blog post I pointed to, "If technology is the answer, then what is the question?" I want to say that there are an equal number of questions and answers but we just don't have them all paired together.
What is the origin of this phrase? I questioned. The internet does not know. It is indeed funny to me that the origin of this phrase is unknown and we are left with another question without an (known) answer. Sometimes some questions and even answers lead to more questions. How often have you heard, which begs the question. Albert Einstein said, "The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know." He also said, "The important thing is not to stop questioning."
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