The longest place name in Europe

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch - (Pronounced [ˌɬanvairˌpuɬɡwɪ̈nˌɡɪ̈ɬɡoˌɡɛrəˌχwərənˌdrobuɬˌɬantɪ̈ˌsiljoˌɡoɡoˈɡoːχ]) (short form Llanfairpwllgwyngyll), is a village and community on the island of Anglesey in Wales, situated on the Menai Strait next to the Britannia Bridge and across the strait from Bangor. The village is best known for its name, the longest place name in Europe (being 58 letters in length -51 letters in the Welsh alphabet, where "ch" and "ll" count as single letters-) and one of the longest place names in the world.

According to the 2001 census, the population of the community is 3,040,[1] 76% of whom speak Welsh fluently; the highest percentage of speakers is in the 10–14 age group, where 97.1% are able to speak Welsh.[citation needed] It is the fifth largest settlement on the island by population.

Visitors stop at the railway station to be photographed next to the station sign, visit the nearby Visitors' Centre, or have 'passports' stamped at a local shop. Another tourist attraction is the nearby Marquess of Anglesey's Column, which at a height of 27 metres offers views over Anglesey and the Menai Strait. Designed by Thomas Harrison, the monument celebrates the heroism of Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey at the Battle of Waterloo.

The name means: St Mary's Church (Llanfair) in a hollow (pwll) of white hazel (gwyngyll) near (goger) the swirling whirlpool (y chwyrndrobwll) of the church of St Tysilio (llantysilio) with a red cave ([a]g ogo goch).

The name is also seen shortened to Llanfair PG, which is sufficient to distinguish it from the many other Welsh villages with Llanfair in their names. Other variant forms use the full name but with tysilio mutated to dysilio, and/or with a hyphen between drobwll and llan. In Welsh, the initial Ll may be mutated to a single L in some contexts.

The village's long name cannot be considered an authentic Welsh-language toponym. It was artificially contrived in the 1860s to bestow upon the station the honour of having the longest name of any railway station in the United Kingdom: an early example of a publicity stunt. The village's own web site credits the name to a cobbler from the local village of Menai Bridge. According to Sir John Morris-Jones the name was created by a local tailor, whose name he did not confide, letting the secret die with him.

The village was originally known as 'Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll' "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel." 'Pwllgwyngyll' was the name of the original medieval township where the village stands today. Although when written and read in English, the name has 58 letters, in Welsh it has only 51 because ll and ch are each regarded as a single letter.

The village is split into two smaller villages, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll-uchaf (Upper Llanfairpwllgwyngyll) the original part of the village and Llanfairpwllgwyngyll-isaf (Lower Llanfairpwllgwyngyll) the newer area nearer the railway station. These are occasionally referred to as Pentre Uchaf and Pentre Isaf (Upper Village and Lower Village) respectively.

The full name of the village is [ˌɬanvairˌpuɬɡwɪ̈nˌɡɪ̈ɬɡoˌɡɛrəˌχwərənˌdrobuɬˌɬantɪ̈ˌsiljoˌɡoɡoˈɡoːχ], or with [ɪ] for [ɪ̈], [pʊɬ, bʊɬ] for [puɬ, buɬ], depending on the speaker's accent.

The approximate pronunciation in English orthography is given at the station as: Llan-vire-pooll-guin-gill-go-ger-u-queern-drob-ooll-llandus-ilio-gogo-goch, although "chwurn" would be a far better representation of the middle syllable than "queern", and "llantus" would be more accurate than "llandus". The ch is a voiceless uvular fricative [χ] or voiceless velar fricative as in "Bach" ([bax]: see ach-Laut) in most varieties of German.

The ll is a voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ], a sound that does not occur in English and is sometimes approximated as [θl] (thl as in athlete) or even [xl] by English speakers.

Six degrees of separation

Six degrees of separation is the theory that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries. The theory was first proposed in 1929 by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in a short story called "Chains."

In the 1950's, Ithiel de Sola Pool (MIT) and Manfred Kochen (IBM) set out to prove the theory mathematically. Although they were able to phrase the question (given a set N of people, what is the probability that each member of N is connected to another member via k_1, k_2, k_3...k_n links?), after twenty years they were still unable to solve the problem to their own satisfaction. In 1967, American sociologist Stanley Milgram devised a new way to test the theory, which he called "the small-world problem." He randomly selected people in the mid-West to send packages to a stranger located in Massachusetts. The senders knew the recipient's name, occupation, and general location. They were instructed to send the package to a person they knew on a first-name basis who they thought was most likely, out of all their friends, to know the target personally. That person would do the same, and so on, until the package was personally delivered to its target recipient.

Although the participants expected the chain to include at least a hundred intermediaries, it only took (on average) between five and seven intermediaries to get each package delivered. Milgram's findings were published in Psychology Today and inspired the phrase "six degrees of separation." Playwright John Guare popularized the phrase when he chose it as the title for his 1990 play of the same name. Although Milgram's findings were discounted after it was discovered that he based his conclusion on a very small number of packages, six degrees of separation became an accepted notion in pop culture after Brett C. Tjaden published a computer game on the University of Virginia's Web site based on the small-world problem. Tjaden used the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) to document connections between different actors. Time Magazine called his site, The Oracle of Bacon at Virginia, one of the "Ten Best Web Sites of 1996."

In 2001, Duncan Watts, a professor at Columbia University, continued his own earlier research into the phenomenon and recreated Milgram's experiment on the Internet. Watts used an e-mail message as the "package" that needed to be delivered, and surprisingly, after reviewing the data collected by 48,000 senders and 19 targets (in 157 countries), Watts found that the average number of intermediaries was indeed, six. Watts' research, and the advent of the computer age, has opened up new areas of inquiry related to six degrees of separation in diverse areas of network theory such as as power grid analysis, disease transmission, graph theory, corporate communication, and computer circuitry.

(http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci932596,00.html)

The mp3 experiment

Most people consider me a gadget reviewer. But in my heart, I consider my specialty to be the intersection of technology and culture. The real fun always begins at the clash of online and offline.

There was no greater proof than the events of last Saturday on Roosevelt Island, a skinny strip in the East River next to Manhattan.

You may not have heard of Improv Everywhere, but you’ve probably seen some of this group’s public stunts on YouTube. Remember the one where everyone in Grand Central Terminal froze simultaneously, baffling passersby? Or the immortal Food Court Musical

Well, last Saturday, the group staged its sixth annual MP3 Experiment, and it was open to anyone who wanted to play along. My son and I did. We joined a couple of other sixth graders and parents.

We followed the Web site’s instructions: (1) Wear a blue, red, yellow or green T-shirt with a white T-shirt underneath. (2) Download the MP3 Experiment audio file and load it onto our iPods–but do not listen to it. (3) Go to Roosevelt Island. At precisely 4 p.m., press Play.

The fun began long before we got to the island; you could identify participants by their double T-shirts and iPods on the commuter train from Connecticut, in Grand Central and on the subways. Nobody knew what to expect, which was all part of the experience.

My little group of six settled down on a grassy slope by the river. Participants were everywhere, all over the island–probably 3,000 of us altogether. We waited until 4:00 exactly. We hit Play.

A male voice, slowed down and processed to sound boomy and authoritative, said: “My name is Steve, and I’ll be your omnipotent voice today.” As happy, cool, electronic music played, he began giving us instructions. Wave to Steve in the sky. Do some warmup stretches. High-five each other. Square-dance with each other. Find a normal person who’s not a participant, and form a single-file line behind him as he walks. Fall to the ground for a “15-second power nap.”

Through all of this, you couldn’t stop laughing. Part of it was the weirdness of seeing 3,000 people acting in perfect unison, even though externally, there wasn’t a sound. Part of it was the cleverness of the script, and Steve’s complete irreverence. (”Did you know that the art of square dancing was invented right here on Roosevelt Island? It probably wasn’t, but we’re going to square dance anyway.”)

Eventually, we were told to walk to the huge grassy field on the southern tip of the island. While we marched, we heard a recitation of a bizarre fractured fairy tale called “Peters and the Wolves.” We also played a game of “Steve Says,” which is just like Simon Says except–well, you get it. (”Steve Says, hop on one foot. Steve says, wink at someone you find cute. Now go grab that person’s rear end. Hey now–Steve didn’t SAY to grab that person’s rear end! I hope nobody got groped!”)

Once on the field, we played freeze tag. (”Yellow shirts, you’re it!”) We told secrets. (”If you’re wearing a red or yellow shirt, please take off your headphones. I’m going to tell a secret to the other group.”) Eventually, we were issued inflatable baseball bats and sledgehammers and pitted against each other in a huge war–no hitting heads or below the belt. (Well, some of us were; there were only 1400 inflatable weapons, not nearly enough for everyone.)

Then, the best part. In the middle of the war, Steve said: “Wait, wait–stop the music! Stop! Everyone–what are we doing? Why must we hit each other with inflatable objects every MP3 Experiment? Why can’t we work together? Why are we fighting amongst ourselves? It’s time to unite! Everyone–remove your colored shirt to reveal your white T-shirt underneath. We are all on the same team!”

The wolf–one of Improv Everywhere’s founders dressed in a head-to-toe furry costume–burst onto the field. This, Steve said, was “our common enemy.” He directed us to bludgeon HIM to death instead.

Then, as triumphant music played, Steve announced: “We’ve done it! We’ve put our T-shirt colors aside, and worked together for the common good! Congratulations, everyone! Now, let’s all celebrate together in the best way possible: in slow motion!”

Everyone high-fived, jumped up and down, and back-slapped–in slow motion, as “Chariots of Fire”-ish music played. It was hilarious.

The weather was absolutely perfect, the crowd was young and fun, and the whole thing was orchestrated, planned and written exceptionally well. (And Tyler Walker’s score was fantastic–47 solid minutes of cool music.)

Cameramen were visible here and there; a video will be up in “a few weeks.” That YouTube element, of course, is what makes Improv Everywhere possible to begin with.

But the video will only be a pale imitation of the real thing. What a totally, totally cool idea: part mass hypnosis, part party, part comedy club…like a political rally, but with more to do. If there’s a seventh MP3 Experiment next year, find a way to be part of it.