Longest English Sentence
There have been several claims for the longest sentence in the English language, usually with claims that revolve around the longest printed sentence. There is no absolute limit on the length of a written English sentence. A sentence can be made as long as time allows with concatenating clauses using grammatical conjunctions such as and. Sentences can also be extended indefinitely by the addition of modifiers and modifier clauses, such as
- The mouse that the cat that the dog chased ....
or of successive extensions of the form
- Someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that...,
which highlights the difference between linguistic performance and linguistic competence, because the language can support more variation than can reasonably be created or recorded. At least one linguistics textbook concludes that "there is no longest English sentence"
Read more about Longest English Sentence: Published Examples
Famous quotes containing the words longest, english and/or sentence:
“I have seen a thousand graves opened, and always perceived that whatever was gone, the teeth and hair remained of those who had died with them. Is not this odd? They go the very first things in youth & yet last the longest in the dust.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.”
—Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)
“I felt that he, a prisoner in the midst of his enemies and under the sentence of death, if consulted as to his next step or resource, could answer more wisely than all his countrymen beside. He best understood his position; he contemplated it most calmly. Comparatively, all other men, North and South, were beside themselves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)