Why is this word loved by anti-Shakespeare critics?

Question

Honorificabilitudinitatibus ---- 27 letters
It is the longest word used by Shakespeare. It appears in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene I, and is spoken by Custard

Answer 1

Honorificabilitudinitatibus is a word used by Costard in act five, scene one of William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. It is (in the quote) the ablativus absolutus plural of the medieval Latin word honorificabilitudinitas, which can be translated as "the state of being able to achieve honours." Appearing only once in Shakespeare's works, it is a hapax legomenon.

The word has been cited by anti-Stratfordians who believe Shakespeare's plays were written by Francis Bacon as an anagram for hi ludi, F. Baconis nati, tuiti orbi, Latin for "these plays, F. Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the world".

Parodying this, John Sladek demonstrated in the 1970s that the word could also be anagrammatized as I, B. Ionsonii, uurit [writ] a lift'd batch, thus "proving" that Shakespeare's works were written by Ben Jonson. (The two u's, rendered as v's in the original literation, are put together to form - literally - a w, as was common practice in Shakespeare's day.)

The word, however, was used long before Shakespeare used it in Love's Labour's Lost, and thus the anagram stands as proof of the anti-Stratfordians' ingenuity rather than as a marker of authorship.

Honorificabilitudo appears in a latin charter of 1187, and occurs as honorificabilitudinitas in 1300. Dante cites honorificabilitudinitate as a typical example of a long word in De Vulg. Eloq. II. vii. It also occurs in The Complaynt of Scotland, and in Marston's Dutch Courtezan (1605).

The earliest use listed in the Oxford English Dictionary is 1599, by Nashe: "Physitions deafen our eares with the Honorificabilitudinitatibus of their heauenly Panachaea, their soueraign Guiacum."

The cartoon Pinky and the Brain also defined honorificabilitudinitatibus during the credits of the episode "Napoleon Braineparte," in their tradition of defining long, obscure words such as this one.

Similarly, it features in the Spelling Bee episode of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide.

Answer 2

Because like most critics, they couldn't do it themselves, and so being envious they have to put the great writer down. It's pathetic.

Answer 3

"the state of being able to achieve honours." -wikipedia

Seems appropriate for a review if you are complimenting the theatre artists involved.

Answer 4

I have no answer myself but the guy above me had one hell of an answer!

Answer 5

THE SECOND PERSON NACHO HAD WELL DEFINED AND EXPRESSED ON THIS QUESTION HENCE I DO NOT HAVE A BETTER ANSWER THAN THIS PLEASE.