Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.
Oh, sure, and the kid before me only had to spell “ostrich”.
The word - which refers to the “law for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling”, has been repealed by a regional parliament after the EU lifted a recommendation to carry out BSE tests on healthy cattle.
The story is here.
Gesundheit.
Just a side note for anyone who doesn’t speak German - those long words are not all that difficult to understand or spell - although I will grant you it is sometimes a challenge to speak the word aloud.
The reason is that these long words are actually several smaller words thrown together into one scary looking long word. So all you have to do is parse down the word into the smaller words and then it is easy to understand and spell.
For instance, if we did this in English you could say there are certain individuals who suffer from “peoplewhohavephobiasaboutlongwords”. As a single word, that looks scary, but anyone who speaks English would be able to figure out the meaning and spelling in fairly short order.
Unterstrasseelektrischebanhofplatz still remains a long way to say ‘subway platform’ so the world can continue spinning as usual, even if it is only about half as long as the dear departed Rindfleisch…
The literal breakdown is under street electric train platform.
What does the process of “repealing a word” entail?
If I’m caught dropping this word in conversation on the streets of Berlin, do I have to worry about being fined?
The word is hardly dropped. A piece of legislation using the word has been repealed. The word will continue to exist, if for no other reason than to refer to that former law.
Highly misleading.
But it will “no longer be used in official texts”, and it’s not likely to be used anywhere else. It’s no longer a “legitimate” word, and will have to hang around bars and back alleys.
