Double negatives RULE!

First prefix is a negative: against that which comes next.

The next one is quite similar: undoing chunks of text.

Now, threefold are the suffixes. The first makes nouns abstract.

The next denotes believers in a thing which they'd call fact.

Last suffix means religion, right? A truth for which we search.

Infix is representative of England's well-known church.

Put them all together and it's really quite absurd.

No longer can we even say it's still the _ _.

1 Answer
1

I believe you are gesturing towards

ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM

which parses thus:

ANTI (against) DIS (undoing) ESTABLISH (Church of England) MENT (makes nouns abstract) ARIAN (believer in one particular Christian heresy) ISM (suffix found, among other places, in JUDAISM and JAINISM and HINDUISM and so forth).

The blanks, of course, say

LONGEST WORD; although A26M is a very long word, e.g. PNEUMOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVULCANOCONIOSIS is longer.

There is a remark in, I believe, Littlewood's Miscellany to the effect that

A26M is all form and no content: it's made up of prefixes anti-, dis-; the Latin root sto; the suffixes -ment, -ary, -ian, -ism. The letters ST are pretty much the only part that isn't an affix. [EDITED to add:] what he actually says is that it's "all 'form' except for the content 'sto'.

By clicking "Post Your Answer", you acknowledge that you have read our updated terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy, and that your continued use of the website is subject to these policies.