Those long German words

10 Nov, 2026

When it comes to the wider world, two facts are famously at the forefront of the English-speaking mind:

1. In Japan, used panties are available from vending machines on every street corner.
2. In Germany, every word is at least seventeen syllables long and Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft is a very common term.

I'm intrigued by how #1 has spread as far as it has, but I have no special insight into the whys and wherefores. On the other hand, drawing analogies between languages to make the exotic seem more understandable and less scary is one of the things we do around here, so let's have a go at #2.

First of all, the longest attested version according to Wikipedia, is Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft. If we were to translate this directly into English, we would get something like Donau steamboat transport company.

And if you were to pronounce that, it would all come out run together, as if it were spelled Donausteamboattransportcompany.

The humble space is a relatively recent invention, and a large number of modern languages have not yet caught up. (Japanese actually seems somewhat offended by the concept, and reserves spaces for children's books and materials for extreme beginners.)

If you want to get some graphic proof of the fact that spoken English really runs together without stopping between the words, have a look at some automated Youtube subtitles, especially with casual unscripted speech. It turns out that "the street" really is pronounced exactly the same as "this treat".¹ Historically, this is how "a napron" became "an apron".

Note that English doesn't have a problem writing some compounds together, such as the "steamboat" we saw earlier. I don't know what the rules here actually are, and Merriam-Webster says "[...] the choice among the styles for a given compound represents one of the most common and vexing of all style issues writers encounter."

Maybe English is not so easy after all.