Primeministerlessness
I quite enjoyed the sixty-eight minutes during which we were primeministerless yesterday, but that’s probably because I spent virtually all of them eating a delicious lunch at Gino’s on Gloucester Green.
The BBC usefully covers the crises that hit the nation during this period of acephalousness (acephalocity?): Chantelle and Preston split up, a man was attacked by a buzzard in Aberdeenshire, and so on.
P.S. If anyone can produce a suitable-sounding German word for “primeministerlessness”, I shall be very pleased. I imagine it’d be quite long.
I would guess ‘Premierslosheit’, which isn’t as long as I’d have hoped. ‘Premier’ is what Die Welt is calling Brown, and as I recall from GCSE, ‘-slos’ means ‘-less’ and ‘-heit’ means ‘-ness’.
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 2:35 pmGood effort, but it rules itself out of contention simply in virtue of having fewer syllables than its English equivalent. We need a longer version.
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 2:40 pmOK… I think we might be able to justify ‘Premierministerslosheit’. 8 syllables - not so bad.
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 2:45 pmHow about Premierministerlosigkeit? (On analogy to Sprachlosigkeit, usw.) That’s nine.
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 3:24 pmThis is terrific — any advances on nine?
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 3:32 pmI can’t - the Swiss have a concept called Fuhrerlosigkeit, ie leaderlessness, though.
You are, btw, the first person on the internet (as recorded by Google) to use the world primeminsterless and primeminsterlessness.
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 4:15 pm(On the whole I think it’s best if the Germans remain in a condition of Führerlosigkeit, at least for a bit longer.)
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 4:16 pmBushschmeichelndekriegsbrandstifterlosigkeit?
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 4:25 pmOr perhaps Kriegsbrandstiftendebushschmeichler.
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 4:31 pm-losigkeit.
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 4:31 pm!!
↓ Quote | Posted 28 June, 2007, 4:40 pm