Alternade Alternade An alternade is a word in which its letters, taken alternatively in a strict sequence, and used in the same order as the original word, make up at least two other words. All letters must be used, but the smaller words are not necessarily of the same length. For example, a word with seven letters where every second letter is used will produce a four-letter word and a three-letter word. In the majority of alternades, every second letter is used to make two smaller words, but in some cases, every third letter is used to make three smaller words.
Longest word in English Sylvia Plath made mention of it in her semi-autobiographical novel "The Bell Jar", when the protagonist was reading "Finnegans Wake". "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", the 34-letter title of a song from the movie "Mary Poppins", does appear in several dictionaries, but only as a proper noun defined in reference to the song title. The attributed meaning is "a word that you say when you don't know what to say." The idea and invention of the word is credited to songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman. The English language permits the legitimate extension of existing words to serve new purposes by the addition of prefixes