that German had lost its longest word.

Really?

How careless.

The word in question was the last word

in the title of a state law in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.

That last word is 63 letters long:

how did the German language manage to lose it?

Well, of course it didn’t.

The law was repealed, but the word continues to exist:

I just used it myself.

And how else are history teachers of the future supposed to talk about

the causes and effects of this law?

But by that logic, it was only the longest word until 2003,

because we then got a law called...

That’s longer by four letters.

The law was repealed in 2007, but again, the word still exists.

But what of the word listed in many editions of the Guinness Book of Records?

This one.

Seventy-nine letters!

Unfortunately, that word doesn’t count.

Why?

Because it was never actually used for anything.

It’s supposedly the name of an association,

But nobody can find any evidence that this association ever existed.

It’s a fake.

Another fake monster German word is:

That seems to have been invented for some kind of advertising campaign,

but any sane German simply calls it an...

Of course, the official titles of laws

are not words that anyone would use in general conversation.

They’re legal jargon;

so although they’re words, they’re not very useful words

unless they’re written down in legal documents.

and even then, it’s more usual to use the official abbreviations.

Although it is common to make new words in German

simply by jamming together shorter words,

there is a limit.

Make a word too long, and even Germans get lost.

In any case, the German language does have other techniques it can use as well;

so in 1995, the Guinness Book of Records

listed as the longest word in common usage:

That’s still a respectable 39 letters,

but even that’s a bit much for most Germans.