The (; RkReÜAÜG; ) was a law of the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern of 1999, repealed in 2013. It dealt with the supervision of the labeling of beef after an outbreak of mad cow disease.
The name of the law is a famous example of the virtually unlimited compounding of nouns that is possible in many Germanic languages. German orthography uses "closed" compounds, concatenating nouns to form one long word. This is unlike most English compounds, which are separated using spaces or hyphens.
Strictly speaking, it is made up of two words, because a hyphen at the end of a word is used to show that the word will end in the same way as the following. Consequently, the two words would be and , coming in at 58 and 63 letters, respectively.
This is the official short title of the law; its full name is , i.e. "law on the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and beef labeling". Most German laws have a short title consisting of a composite noun.
Words this long are not very common in German. When the law was proposed in the state parliament, the members reacted with laughter and the responsible minister Till Backhaus apologized for the "possibly excessive length".
In 1999, the Association for the German Language nominated for its Word of the Year award, but it lost to the topical word .
In 2003, the Bundesrat issued a decree that modified some real estate-related regulations, named the ("regulation on the delegation of authority concerning land conveyance permissions"). With 67 letters in its name, it surpassed the RkReÜAÜG, but was repealed in 2007.
See also
- German compounds
- Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu
- Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft|
- Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
- Longest word in English
- Scriptio continua
References
External links
- Official parliamentary record of the debate (pdf, in German)
- A choir singing the word.