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January 23

Longest titled article

Not really sure where to ask this question, so hope here is ok. Given the title of today's featured article, which is quite long, I started wondering which article has the longest title. Can anyone help? This is Paul (talk) 15:36, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For technical reasons, all Wikipedia article titles are limited to not more than 255 characters, so that provides a hard upper bound. The longest titles listed at Wikipedia:Wikipedia records#Titles are both song titles.

Note that that first song actually has a longer title than that, it's just truncated with the ellipsis because of the 255-character restriction. Similarly, the article named When the Pawn... is a truncated song title that would be 455 characters long if written out in full: When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might so When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:54, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That last one's almost a song in itself. This is Paul (talk) 16:55, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

On the tangentially related long names of BLPs, there's Ilikena Lasarusa Talebulamainavaleniveivakabulaimainakulalakebalau --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 16:58, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, both Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg are not even redirects, despite being the full names of those places (see Llanfairpwllgwyngyll and Lake Chaubunagungamaug) --Jayron 32 17:08, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is a Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg link. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:57, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'll be fooked. I don't know why yours works and mine doesn't. --Jayron 32 19:01, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is also a Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch link. Your links seem to have a bunch of extra imbedded characters. I don't know what's up with that.

Oh, I see - it's all the hyphens between your syllables. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:03, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What hyphens? --Jayron 32 19:08, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hover your cursor over your redlinks, and you'll see them. Actually as special characters. I don't see them in edit mode, only when hovering over them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:20, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem is Jayron32 copied the name from the article or somewhere similar. I'm guessing the word has a bunch of Soft hyphens. As the article explains, in this context these are used to tell the browser (or other software) the best place to hyphenate long words if it needs to, to break up long lines. For this reason, in most normal contexts they do not show (if the word ends up being hyphenated then those which are used will be shown). Nil Einne (talk) 08:50, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, while some software will hyphenate wherever they think is best without soft hyphens, not all will do so. So to give an example of why this is useful compare

Extended content
Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon

and

Extended content
Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon

You may find, possibly depending on your browser, that the first is simply a very long line. Nil Einne (talk) 10:50, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfair%C2%ADpwllgwyngyll%C2%ADgogery%C2%ADchwyrn%C2%ADdrobwll%C2%ADllan%C2%ADtysilio%C2%ADgogo%C2%ADgoch

While not the longest Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad is one of my all time favorite titles. MarnetteD|Talk

If it wasn't commonly known by its shorter title of Marat/Sade - The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade would rank right up there. MarnetteD|Talk 19:05, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm partial to Borat: Stereophonic Musical Listenings That Have Been Origin in Moving Film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan". Great name. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:07, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Police have a song titled "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around"; in 1981 there was a club remix version that charted titled "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around/Voice Inside My Head" which may be one of the longest titles ever for a charted track. --Jayron 32 19:08, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, we do have Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg and Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg as redirects. (I think one of these was noted above, lazy to work out which one.) Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg was actually created first and ended up with some content, then Lake Chaubunagungamaug a few years later. Then someone started to add content to Lake Chaubunagungamaug a merger was proposed and quickly implement. Renames have been proposed before, but there appears to be some dispute over whether the longer name is really the official name.

Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein is another of similar name length (also the primary article not the redirect). Our article Longest word in English suggests Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu could be the longest single word place name although the one mentioned there is actually the shorter Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu (which is a redirect). Since the original discussion didn't restrict to a single word, we also have Dysart, Dudley, Harcourt, Guilford, Harburn, Bruton, Havelock, Eyre and Clyde although that's a redirect, our article it the shortened Dysart et al, Ontario.

For those in a major dictionary Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is suggested. If you're not restricting yourself to English we do have Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft. Frankly though all these are still not very long. We do have Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon which is also a primary article, not a redirect.

BTW, Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, Sr. suggests we should have [[Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvorangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolfhunderttausendjahresvorandieerscheinenvonderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgenachtmittungsteinundsiebeniridiumelektrischmotorsgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchennachbarschaftdersternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneuerassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortpflanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvorandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum, Senior]] as a redirect if it was technically possible.

Nil Einne (talk) 10:35, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In contrast, For sale: baby shoes, never worn is an article title that contains the entire text of the topic piece. Imagine a Wikipedia where the article for the bible was "In the beginning..." and so on for 783,000-odd more words... Matt Deres (talk) 17:28, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How is it that we don't have an article for Johann Gambolputty... de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle- dongle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz- ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer- spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein- nurnburger-bratwustle-gernspurten-mitz-weimache-luber-hundsfut- gumberaber-shonedanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm? :-) Yikes looks like there is one on the German WikiP. MarnetteD|Talk 18:31, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See: Wikipedia records: Article with longest title, the winner is/was The Sad But True Story of Ray Mingus, the Lumberjack of Bulk Rock City, and His Never Slacking Stribe in Exploiting the So Far Undiscovered Areas of the Intention to Bodily Intercourse from the Opposite Species of His Kind... (now a redirect) — It would have been When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might so When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right -but- Wikimedia couldn't handle it.

~~The longest actual article title (not a redirect) is (drum roll, please)...~~

Suzukake no Ki no Michi de "Kimi no Hohoemi o Yume ni Miru" to Itte Shimattara Bokutachi no Kankei wa Dō Kawatte Shimau no ka, Bokunari ni Nannichi ka Kangaeta Ue de no Yaya Kihazukashii Ketsuron no Yō na Mono (yes, English language WP). —107.15.152.93 (talk) 21:52, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[Already linked above] 107.15.152.93 (talk) 20:12, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]