Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (pronounced /ˌsuːpərˌkælɪˌfrædʒəlˌɪstɪkˌɛkspiːˌælɪˈdoʊʃəs/) is an English word, with 34 letters, that was in the song with the same title in the Disney musical film Mary Poppins. The song was written by the Sherman Brothers, and sung by Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke. It also appears in the stage show version of Mary Poppins.

Since Mary Poppins was a period piece set in 1910, period sounding songs were wanted. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious sounds like contemporary music hall songs "Boiled Beef and Carrots" and "Any Old Iron".^[1]

Origin

According to Richard M. Sherman, co-writer of the song with his brother, Robert, the word was created by them in two weeks, mostly out of double-talk.^[2]

The roots of the word have been defined^[3] as follows: super- "above", cali- "beauty", fragilistic- "delicate", expiali- "to atone", and docious- "educable", with the sum of these parts signifying roughly "Atoning for educability through delicate beauty." Although the word contains recognizable English morphemes, it does not follow the rules of English morphology as a whole. The morpheme -istic is a suffix in English, whereas the morpheme ex- is typically a prefix; so following normal English morphological rules, it would represent two words: supercalifragilistic and expialidocious. The pronunciation also leans towards it being two words since, the letter c doesn't normally sound like a k when followed by an e, an i or a y.

According to the 1964 Walt Disney film, it is defined as "something to say when you have nothing to say".^[4]

In the 1942 movie The Undying Monster (directed by John Brahm), the character Rob Curtis (played by James Ellison) says of character Christy, "Miss Christopher suffers from an overdeveloped supercalaphegalus."^{[citation needed]} He goes on to define the word as "female intuition." This passage does not appear in the 1936 novel by Jessie Douglas Kerruish^{[citation needed]}. The screenplay was written by Lillie Hayward and Michael Jacoby.

Story context

The song occurs in the chalk drawing outing animated sequence, just after Mary Poppins wins a horse race. Flush with her victory, she is immediately surrounded by reporters who pepper her with leading questions and they comment that she probably is at a loss for words. Mary disagrees, suggesting that at least one word is appropriate for the situation and begins the song.

Legal action

In 1965, the song was the subject of an unsuccessful lawsuit by songwriters Gloria Parker and Barney Young against Wonderland Music, who published the version of the song from the Walt Disney film.^[5] The plaintiffs alleged that it was a copyright infringement of a 1951 song of their own called Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus. Also known as The Super Song, Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus was recorded by Alan Holmes and his New Tones on Columbia Records, Vocal by Hal Marquess and the Holmes Men, music and lyrics by Patricia Smith a Gloria Parker pen name. In addition, Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus was recorded on Gloro Records(45) by The Arabian Knights. The Disney publishers won the lawsuit partially because affidavits were produced showing that "variants of the word were known (...) many years prior to 1949."

Stage Musical

In the West End and Broadway musical, Mary Poppins takes Jane and Michael Banks to visit Mrs Corry's shop to buy 'an ounce of conversation', only to find that Mrs Corry has run out of conversation. She does, however have some letters, and Jane and Michael each pick out 7, with Mary choosing one also. As Bert, Mary and the rest of the ensemble struggle to create words out of the 15 letters, Mary reminds them that they can always use the same letter more than once, and creates the word (and song) supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.^{[citation needed]}

In popular culture

• Annie (Scarlett Johansson), herself a nanny, tells her pupil Greyer "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is the longest word in English in The Nanny Diaries.
• Graeme Garden sang the words to the tune of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (Ode to Joy) (the European Anthem) on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on BBC Radio 4.
• Bill Oddie parodied the song and the word in I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again with the song "Antibellumlaudadatarmamuttertorum". (The spelling is approximate.)
• When Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC remarkably beat Celtic FC in the Scottish Cup 3-1 in February 2000 The Sun reported the story with the headline "Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious".
• On the episode of The Colbert Report first aired on Oct. 2, 2008, host Stephen Colbert uses the term "supercalifragilisticexpializillion" to describe an alternate sum United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson could have requested for the bailout to alleviate the 2008 credit crisis.
• The word was the solution to a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune on April 1, 1997. The category was "Really Long Title".
• On an episode on Saturday Night Live, there was a sketch involving guest host Anne Hathaway dressed up as Mary Poppins, in which she explain to Jane and Michael that "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is a rare and painful disease of the liver, in which the liver stops producing bile and the body shuts down. She knows this because she (Mary Poppins) has the disease. She also says that it is not at all fun to have, that it is highly contagious, but "only among adults" (transmission through sexual contact is implied). Bert and a local constable appear, both complaining of stomach distress, blaming it on Mary Poppins' "cooking". Both Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews co-stared in the 2001 Disney film, The Princess Diaries.
• On the popular show The Vicar of Dibley it reveals that part of the vicar's name is "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"
• In the House of Mouse episode "Goofy for a Day", "Soup or Salad, Fries or Biscuits" follows the tune of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".
• The word was used as a password and as one of the clues to a puzzle (of which the answer was Mary Poppins) in a 1980 episode of Password Plus. It was the longest password ever used in any incarnation of Password.
• In 2009, Dutch guitarist Eltjo Haselhoff recorded a solo acoustic guitar arrangement for "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" on the album Poppin' Guitars: A Tuneful of Sherman.

See also

• Gloria Parker
• Longest word in English

References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2007)

• Sherman, Robert B. Walt's Time: from before to beyond. Santa Clarita: Camphor Tree Publishers

External links

Look up supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• "Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious" at the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health & Human Services (NIEHS). (Lyrics and Quicktime audio clip).
• Mary Poppins (1964) at Reel Classics; features "Multimedia Clips": incl. Mary Poppins Highlights: "Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious!".
• The Saturday Night Live Mary Poppins Sketch