I was maybe in third grade when I heard from someone, I don’t remember who, that the word “antidisestablishmentarianism,” with 28 letters, was the longest word in the English language.

Actually, it isn’t. According to Google, “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” at 45 letters, is the longest word. It refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano.

But when I was maybe in the third grade, Google didn’t exist. Neither, for that matter, did the internet. So when I heard that antidisestablishmentarianism was the longest word in the language, I assumed that it was, in fact, the longest word. And I made it my goal to learn how to spell it by heart.

Once I had mastered memorizing how to spell antidisestablishmentarianism, I would go up to random people and proudly say, “I know how to spell the longest word in the English langage.” Then I would spell antidisestablishmentarianism for them. Everyone was duly impressed. And I was very pleased with myself.

Until one day when someone asked me if I knew what antidisestablishmentarianism meant. I didn’t. My skill was being able to spell the longest word. It didn’t occur to me to that I should also know its meaning. I asked my father what it meant. He didn’t know. Neither did my mother. Nor my two older sisters. Even my third grade teacher was stumped.

So I went to the school librarian and asked her if she knew what it meant. She smiled at me and said, “Let’s go look it up.” Then she led me to the biggest, fattest dictionary I’d ever seen. It was sitting atop a tall pedestal and I had to stand on a step-stool to read it.

The librarian opened the dictionary and turned to the page and said, “Ah, here it is.” Then she began reading from this humongous dictionary.

“Antidisestablishmentarianism: Opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church, especially the Anglican Church in 19th-century England.”

Sadly, even after hearing the definition of antidisestablishmentarianism, I still didn’t really understand what the word actually meant. Something about being against not paying for the church, but to my maybe in the third grade mind, that didn’t make much sense to me anyway.

Besides, my claim to fame was not explaining what the word meant. Oh no. It was in being able to spell antidisestablishmentarianism by heart on demand. Although truth be told, there wasn’t much of a demand for that particular skill.

To this day, though, should anybody ask, I’d be happy to spell antidisestablishmentarianism for them. And I think that is pretty supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (34 letters).

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Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where Linda has asked us to decide on our favorite word and use it in our post any way we’d like. Can you guess the word I chose?