zenzizenzizenzic

Name

zenzizenzizenzic — zenzizenzizenzic — raise a number to the eighth power and say so at length

Synopsis

zenzizenzizenzic [--base N] [--zenzi]... NUMBER
((x²)²)² == x⁸
cost: 3 multiplies; syllables: 6; Z's: 6

Description

zenzizenzizenzic computes and pronounces the eighth power of its argument. It squares three times — zenzic, zenzizenzic, zenzizenzizenzic — appending one zenzi per squaring and never once reaching for a raised numeral. The return value is correct. The name is longer than the number for all bases below 1000.

Internally it is exponentiation by squaring wearing a period costume: three multiplications where the naive route takes seven. The word is deprecated for arithmetic and retained for effect. Every consonant does real work; none of them are the exponent.

Output is UTF-8. The Z's are not a bug and cannot be reduced without collapsing the term to x⁸, at which point the routine has nothing to say and says it in two characters.

Options

--zenzi

Prepend one more squaring. Doubles the exponent, adds five letters. Stackable until the reader gives up.

--base N

Set the number being squared. Changes the result. Does not change the name; the name is about the exponent and declines to care.

--naive

Reach x⁸ by seven ordinary multiplications instead of three squarings. Correct, slower, and no longer a joke about the letter Z.

--superscript

Emit x⁸ instead of the word. Faster, clearer, and fatal. Enabling this in 1637 ended the entire vocabulary.

--cube

Switch to the cubic naming scheme. Produces zenzicube and worse. Provided for completeness and regret.

--count-z

Print only the number of Z's. Returns 6. The reason anyone still runs this.

Exit Status

0

x⁸ reached in three squarings; the word was spelled correctly on the first attempt

6

Z-count nominal; unofficial English record held and defended

1637

superscript notation available; this routine is now decorative

111

one --zenzi too many; exponent exceeds the reader's patience

History

Robert Recorde coined the zenzi- vocabulary in The Whetstone of Witte (1557), the same treatise that introduced the equals sign. Zenzic descends from German zenzic, itself from Italian censo, from Latin census — the medieval merchant's word for a squared quantity. Because no exponent notation existed, powers had to be named rather than written, and squaring the square of the square yielded zenzizenzizenzic for x⁸. The Oxford English Dictionary preserves it as the English word carrying the most Z's.

Bugs

Bases above 999 print faster as digits than as the word, defeating the purpose. Working as intended.

--superscript, once enabled, cannot be disabled by argument. It was disabled by four centuries and a graveyard.

The routine returns x⁸ correctly but offers no name for x⁷, x⁵, or any prime power. Recorde considered these and did not answer.

See Also

idempotent(3), homoiconicity(3), tombstone(5). The living exhibit demonstrates the word in motion:

▸ operate zenzizenzizenzic

Author

Filed by the lexicographer who entered it as Obs. rare. and declined to strike it, on the standing principle that a word may be kept for wonder as readily as for use.