Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde.

Yes, that is a real word. Please tell me you did not try to pronounce it. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. But you can have a little fun with it.

Do an online search, and you will find it is tucked into the lyrics of a song by North Sea Gas. (It’s on YouTube.) And they have no problem putting a little bounce in the word.

If you search deep enough, you also might find the word has its place in writer Anne Fadiman’s family history, a history that is peppered with books, literature and word games. Word games that involved long and mysterious words. (Mysterious because most people need several clues to know what they mean.)

Her literary world was created by her father, Clifton Fadiman, a critic and essayist. Fadiman also is an author, reporter and is well known for her essays. Thanks to her father, she loves books ... and sesquipedalians.

Yep, that’s another long, curious word, but this one is easier to sound out. Plus, it’s adorable because it means “long words.” When Fadiman was a youngster, she collected butterflies, seashells and snakeskins, but later she started saving sesquipedalians.

After I came across that bit of her biography, I had to buy her book of essays written in 1998, “Ex Libris, Confessions of a Common Reader.” I had to read her memoir chapter on “The Joy of Sesquipedalians.”

She tells of the word competition she had with her brother Kim, which evolved from word stories her father wrote when she was 11 years old. His stories were about Wally, a “wordworm” who ate books, but he had an appetite for heftier words ... like sesquipedalian.

Fadiman and her brother battled to see who could come up with the best sesquipedalians. Kim won with ... wait for it ... paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde, which Fadiman says is a smelly chemical. She and her brother also used the word in a song that echoes the tune of “The Irish Washerwoman.”

The long word challenge was growing stale until Fadiman discovered a 1920 book about cats by Carl Van Vechten, which she applauded in her essay.

“What simultaneously most thrilled me and made me feel most like a dunce was Van Vechten’s vocabulary,” she said. “I couldn’t remember the last time I’d met so many words I didn’t know. By the end of the book, I’d jotted down 22. Not only did I have no idea what they meant, I couldn’t remember even seeing them before.”

Fadiman embraced those words, like she had discovered buried treasure. Words such as cupellation, camorra, aspergill, kakodemon, goetic, opopanax, diapason, grimoire, adytum and sepoy. She turned her 22 words into a challenge; she pushed at family and friends.

“I regret that I have spent my life until now without knowing that a grimoire is a book of magic spells or that an adytum is the inner sanctum of a temple,” she wrote, adding, “Wally’s dictionary and Carl Van Vechten’s cat book are grimoires. I feel their spells working on me at this very moment.”

I do love words, which is why I was fascinated by Fadiman’s attraction to what she calls “four-dollar” words. However, I have spent too much time in the newspaper biz to share Fadiman’s word addiction. We are taught to use cheaper words since our mission is to help readers understand, rather than confuse them.

So you see, I don’t have any real use for sesquipedalians. Because – oh, wait. Ummm ... I guess I do. I couldn’t have written most of this without them. I’ve violated a journalistic rule. Now I feel a bit gormless.

I do look forward to reading more of Anne Fadiman’s essays. And I am glad she decided to share her memories ... and her words.

And, dear readers, if you really want to try, here’s a clue on how to pronounce that word: para-di-meth-ill-a-MEE-no-ben-ZAL-de-hyde.

Now ... try singing it.

• Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His PaperWork email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com. Or mail the NewsTribune, 426 Second St., La Salle IL 61301.