For those in this thread who love language (and it seems most if not all do), I would recommend reading The Loom of Language, a book that unravels many of the mysteries of the development and history of language.

I recently bought a copy for a friend (I wouldn't give my copy up) at Alibris, which has used hard-cover copies in good condition available starting at $4.70.

As my contribution to this thread (beyond the reading assignment), I would only like to point out that I was tested on the spelling of Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän and other similarly short words by my father when I was in my third or fourth year of school. I usually got them right but once in a while would miss something like one of the f's where there are 3.