How Do You Spell Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

Do you remember the classic 1964 movie called “Mary Poppins?” Well, I sure do. The musical film starring actress Julie Andrews tells the creative story of a nanny who has magical powers and goes on to win an unorthodox, merry-go-round horse race. Julie Andrews becomes surrounded by several reporters who end up saying she has to be lost for words. Indeed, it was this nostalgic 1964 film that truly popularized much of North America back in the day.

What Does Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Mean?

For many movie fanatics, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and the Mary Poppins movie are closely related. Richard and Robert, the actual songwriters, used to explain that the very whimsical word initially originated in the exact same way they used to create unique, nonsensical words as kids.

Although in the film itself, the strange word really has no meaning to it, nevertheless still stands as a strong keepsake from the kids so-called “magical” adventure. Going by what the Oxford English Dictionary believes, the double-talk word has today come to be defined as a mere expression of excited approval.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidociou is a compound word made up of the following words: super meaning “above”, cali meaning “beauty”, fragilistic meaning “delicate”, expiali meaning “to atone”, and lastly docious meaning “educable.”

The Origin of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Strangely enough, there used to be a certain song entitled “Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus” that happened to be creatively written in 1949. An expert theatre and film critic at the International Herald Tribune, Mr. Matt Wolf believes that it is a great song to choreograph simply because of all of the syllables it has.

As the story goes, the official authors of this song would essentially bring a legal suit against both of the Sherman brothers for copyright infringement later on. All things considered, the legal court decided in the Shermans’ favor because, along with other things, several official affidavits would be eventually produced that claimed that alternative forms of the word were known various years before 1949, hence making the plaintiffs’ actual claim unsubstantial.

As a matter of fact, the earliest known written document of a variant form is for “supercaliflawjalisticexpialidoshis” derived from an “A-muse-ings” column created by a woman named Helen Herman in 1931. Mrs. Herman is affiliated with “The Syracuse Daily Orange” which is associated with Syracuse University. The newspaper journalist reflected back about her made-up, quirky word, jokingly describing it as including “all words in the category of something wonderful.”

Today, the extremely unique and somewhat odd word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in the Mary Poppins film has truly brought cheer and joy to audiences around the world for decades. That same joy has also inspired many individuals to use it, just like Helen Herman had used her special word, for different things that are absolutely wonderful and extraordinary.

The word was eventually used by many in a shorter form. People from different areas of the world began using a shortened adjective form, supercalifragilistic, along with the adverbial form supercalifragilistically. Even though these two unique forms do not often appear, they do mean something similar to that of “amazing” or “wonderful.”

How Do You Spell Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

This is a very common question that kids ask after watching Mary Poppins. Many English speakers all around the world are very familiar with the long word that contains 34 letters. This fancy formation of a word based upon the general word ‘super’ is of English origin. So, just how do you spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Well, the right spelling can be seen here:

su•per•ca•li•fra•gil•is•tic•ex•pi•a•li•do•cious

Throughout the centuries, there have been many writers who have greatly enjoyed coming up with long words, although these hardly ever gain any popularity in wider use. The famous poet of beautiful Greece, Aristophanes had actually came up with a weird name for a fish stew made from pigeons and honey that contains 182 letters when carefully translated into the English language.

Another interesting reference to the word comes from the hip Japanese rock band known as Boowy. Boowy came out with a certain song entitled “SUPER-CALIFRAGILISTIC-EXPIARI-DOCIOUS” that became creatively written by their very own guitarist named Tomoyasu Hotei on their debuting 1986 album known as Beat Emotion.

How Do You Spell Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Backwards?

While the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is technically spelled backwards as such:

suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus

the makers of the 1964 film only reversed the syllables such that:

docious•ali•expi•istic•fragil•cali•rupus

We think that the producers used “rupus” as the last syllable since it sounds better than “repus”.

Final Thoughts

Just remember one thing, that even though the sound of it sometimes seems quite atrocious, there really isn’t anything wrong with saying “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!”