(; RkReÜAÜG; which is literally, "Cattle marking and beef labeling supervision duties delegation law") was a

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

of the German state of

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; nds, Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in po ...

of 1999, repealed in 2013. It dealt with the supervision of the labeling of beef. The name of the law is a famous example of the virtually unlimited

compounding In the field of pharmacy, compounding (performed in compounding pharmacies) is preparation of a custom formulation of a medication to fit a unique need of a patient that cannot be met with commercially available products. This may be done for me ...

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...

s that is possible in many

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...

. German orthography uses "closed" compounds, concatenating nouns to form one long word. This is unlike most

English compound A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme. The English language, like many others, uses compounds frequently. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their ...

s, which are separated using spaces or hyphens. Strictly speaking, it is made up of two words, because a hyphen at the end of a word is used to show that the word will end in the same way as the following. Consequently, the two words would be and , coming in at 58 and 63 letters, respectively. This is the official

short title In certain jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and other Westminster-influenced jurisdictions (such as Canada or Australia), as well as the United States and the Philippines, primary legislation has both a short title and a long title. Th ...

of the law; its

full name A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known, ...

is , corresponding to ''Law on delegation of duties for supervision of cattle marking and beef labeling''. Most German laws have a short title consisting of a composite noun. Words this long are not very common in German. When the law was proposed in the state parliament, the members reacted with laughter and the responsible minister

Till Backhaus Till Backhaus (born Neuhaus 13 March 1959) is a German politician. As the German Democratic Republic approached its end as a standalone state, Backhaus was one of those who in December 1989 (re-)founded the Social Democratic Party, more than ...

apologized for the "possibly excessive length". In 1999, the Association for the German Language nominated for its Word of the Year award, but it lost to das Millennium, a Latin word that gained in usage at the time, complementing the German word for millennium, ''Jahrtausend''. In 2003, a decree was established that modified some real estate-related regulations; its name was longer than the above law: (

long title In certain jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and other Westminster-influenced jurisdictions (such as Canada or Australia), as well as the United States and the Philippines, primary legislation has both a short title and a long title. The ...

: , GrundVZÜV), roughly ''Regulation on the delegation of authority concerning land conveyance permissions''. At 67 letters, it surpassed the RkReÜAÜG, but was repealed in 2007.Text of repeal at Buzer.de
/ref>

References

External links

*
Official parliamentary record of the debate (pdf, in German)A choir singing the word.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsuberwachungsaufgabenubertragungsgesetz 2000 in law Repealed German legislation State law in Germany German words and phrases 2000 in Germany 20th century in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Long words

See also

References

External links