Brain worm

If having a song that you cannot get out of your head is called an “ear worm”, then I have a brain worm.

Many years ago, an acquaintance was denigrating his father, saying he didn’t know any four syllable words. My response was, “refrigerator, five syllables
!” His response to that was, “ice box, two.” I couldn’t think of any other words of four or more syllables at that time. However, his father was a mechanic and surely would have known carburetor, generator, alternator, and radiator.

Now (more that 40 years later!), I cannot stop trying to come up with counter-examples. Whenever I read, speak, hear, think of a longish word, I have to stop and count the syllables. Then I have to curse the fellow who put this in my head.

Mundane and pointless, and now I have shared.

California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Alabama, Mississippi, Connecticut, Minnesota, Minneapolis, Indiana, Indianapolis, Cincinnati.

Desperado, democracy, constitution, disagreement, political, suicidal, homicidal, merry-go-round, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, dictionary, psychology.

Aarrghh!

Mundane: quotidian, unremarkable, ordinary, mediocre

Science saves the day, once again.

Biology, zoology, taxonomy, ethology, pathology, cosmology, astronomy, etc.

Scientific!

Perseverate” would seem to be the most appropriate example (though “appropriate” is appropriate, too).

No love for Pennsylvania?

That’s 5.

I’m from Pennsylvania. I pronounce it “Pen-sull-vay-nyuh.” Four syllables.

West Virginia
South Dakota
North Dakota

Well, the OP did say

and

and then went on to include some examples with more than 4 syllables:

If Pennsylvania has 5 syllables then so does California.

Well, yeah, if Gov. Schwarzenegger says it. :smiley: