One of the longest words in English, it’s the action or habit of estimating something as worthless or unimportant, but is it worth exploring this through the prism of song lyrics? Perhaps.
Thought to have been first used by English poet William Shenstone and one of the first practitioners of landscape gardening, neither of which could be deemed worthless activities. He used it in broken down form in humorous a letter in 1741: “I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money”.
The word’s apparently unwieldy and unpronounceable parts, generally used not without a degree of irony, and for the sheer love of language, derive from Latin and Italian Latin floccus (“a wisp”) + naucum (“a trifle”) + nihilum (“nothing”) + pilus (“a hair”) + -fication, and in variant interpretations, Flócci of a lock of wool, náuci of a nut-shell, níhili of nothing, píli of a hair.
How to pronounce it? Let’s hear done, nice and clearly from a foreign perspective:
Arguably, at 29 letters, the longest non-technical English word, it has apparently been popular at times with attendees of the British private ("public") school Eton College, and once used pretentiously as the longest every word in that context, in the House of Commons by traditionalist and current Brexit-favouring Conservative MP and old-Etonian Jacob Rees-Mogg, about whom many might indeed justifiably and accurately floccinaucinihilipilificate, or deem utterly worthless as a public servant via other derivatives of the word - by floccinaucinihilipilificatory means, in a floccinaucinihilipilificatious way with complete floccinaucinihilipilificatiousness.
The word itself is not one you’re likely to find in song lyrics, but there are plenty of examples of songs about perceiving worthlessness whether of oneself or others. Let’s begin with a classic written by Carl Sigman and Bob Hilliard, and first recorded in 1948 by Sammy Kaye with vocals by Don Cornell, then in 1949 by Mel Tormé and many other such as Bing Crosby, but of course also Frank Sinatra, in which he expresses the narrator’s heart has been broken by a careless someone who deemed him worthless.
I let my heart fall into careless hands
Careless hands broke my heart in two
You held my dreams like worthless grains of sand
Careless hands don't care when dreams slip through
I brought you joy
And girl I loved you so
But all that sunshine didn't make the roses grow
If you don't change
Someday you'll know the sorrow of careless hands
That can't hold onto love
I let my heart fall into careless hands
Careless hands broke my heart in two
You held my dreams like worthless grains of sand
Careless hands don't care when dreams slip through
In another form of putting down, the eccentric singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston in Davinare, from 2001’s album Rejected Unknown:
March, Friday or Saturday
Art show with Ron English
Says I'm a worthless bum
You know they call me a worthless bum
You know I had my share of chums
But I'm a worthless bum, says I
You might be thinkin' of Davinare
You might be thinkin' of things that scare
Whatever you're thinking, I don't care
To be stripped bare
Worthless bum says I
I never deny a precious gift
You know I probably stole all my riffs
But I'm a worthless bum, says I
Elvis Costello took a more fiercer, more cutting, aggressive stance over a troubled relationship with Worthless Thing from Goodbye Cruel World in 1984:
How many times can you jump out of the cupboard
Before someone gets suspicious or someone gets discovered
You can live forever in a split second of fame
Come on down the price is right what's your name
While a crocodile makes good shoes and a dog may change his coat
I can't change what’s written on your face tonight and I quote
Oh I wish you could see
Quite how much you could mean to me
You worthless thing
If you were ten feet taller and almost handsome
I might pay this king's ransom
You worthless thing
And here’s Aztec Camera in Pillar To Post, from a year earlier, taken from High Land, Hard Rain, on how a unsettled lifestyle and lack of commitment can also be worth very little.
Once I was happy in happy extremes
These bitter tokens are worthless to me
So you appear and say how I've grown
Fill me up with faces I've known
In this light, they're far from divine
I save them up and spend them when I have time
The salted taste of all your tears and woes
Sent me in haste, my melancholy rose
Those tasteless lips were closed
You watched me come, you see me go
Once I was happy in happy extremes
Packing my bags for the path of the free
From pillar to post, I am driven, it seems
These bitter tokens are worthless to me
Let’s now go even further back to the mid-70s and open up an empty promises Pandora's Box with Donna Summer from Love to Love You Baby:
If I had known of what would come
I might have walked outta here a lot less harmed
But I'm no lady of the glass
And I can't foretell what will pass
And I went with my defences down
As your love sent me spinning spinning 'round
Oh you took me to the very top
And then I took a bad (and) long long drop
Oh promises are made to be broken
That's all I ever learned from loving you
And oh when you opened up your love to me
You opened up pandora's box
Oh promises are made to bend and stretch oh
And end up being really worthless
And oh when I opened up the door to you
I opened up pandora's box
Can you teach a Dog New Tricks? Not according to Garbage in this song from 1995:
Everyone I know has gone away
Died or left or just forgot to stay
Sometimes took for granted
Sometimes turned away
Sometimes didn't say what
I meant to say
Dog new tricks
Nothing you learn will stick
Dog new tricks
You make me feel so worthless
The Beautiful South take their own signature double-edged perspective with Worthless Lie from the Miaow album of 1994:
Our paths will cross some day
Our paths will cross some day
While you're out jogging and I'm sat snogging
Some fool on a lakeside bench
And when she calls I hope it's you that dials
I hope it's you that feels this love inside
And when I touch her I hope it's you that smiles
And when I die I hope it's you I'm beside
To die with her would be a worthless lie
To die with her would be a worthless die
To die together would be worth a try
To die together would be worth a try
And to end with something more recent, here’s Tinie Tempah featuring Ester Dean with the accusatory Love Suicide:
You did it on purpose, purpose!
You did it on purpose, purpose!
You made me feel worthless, worthless
Why would you hurt us, hurt us!
So then, do any more floccinaucinihilipilification-related songs worth floating up from your collection? Feel free to share any further ones from songs, or even film, art or other contexts in comments below.
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