How many syllables in the word squirrelled?
I’ve thought it’s “strengths” but I could be wrong.
I say “squirreled” as two syllables: skwuhr-uld. But I hear skwuh-ruld, too. Even skwi-ruld or skwir-uld. But I guess it might be slurred to skwurld or skwirld to sound like one syllable. But I’ve also heard some pretty fucked up ways of saying it where the kw sound is after the r sound.
Smiles.
It’s two ss with a mile between them.
I have to say Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! beats that.
A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 4
SCRAUNCHED (10 letters) and SCROONCHED (plus several others from the OED 2)
Also MWCD10 shows a one-syllable pronunciation of squirrel which presumably would apply to the 11-letter squirrelled.
MWCD10 = Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition
OED2 = the Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition
The French word for smurfs is schtroumpfs (11 letters).
I wonder what is the longest one syllable word in any language.
Are we looking at how many letters it has or how long it takes to say? I don’t know the answer either way, but same letter length words can take longer to say than other words of the same length so it could lead to an entirely different answer (albeit a rather complicated one what with dialects and such).
Both of which suffer from being well outside normal usage and thus appearing highly contrived. Neither “straights” nor “strengths” has this defect.
“Stretched” has the same length as “strengths”. Both are standard English.
Worchestershire.
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.
French doesn’t count; they always stop pronouncing after the first 5 letters.
This page suggests another borderline eleven-letter contender, broughammed (transported by brougham, akin to “trucked”, “carted”, etc.)
“Time” goes on forever.
Taut
An AU (Astronomical Unit =~ 93 million miles) between the Ts
This is my favorite - mostly because it looks like it should be prononced with two or three syllables.
My hat’s off to you.
What is that scene about? (I’ve never seen the movie.) Spoiler it if you must.