英语学习：最长的英文单词解析

　　PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS

　　矽肺病

　　At 45 letters, this is the longest word you’ll find in a major dictionary. An inflated version of silicosis, this is the full scientific name for a disease that causes inflammation in the lungs owing to the inhalation of very fine silica dust. Despite its inclusion in the dictionary, it’s generally considered superfluous, having been coined simply to claim the title of the longest English word.

　　矽肺病的英文名有45个字母，是主流字典中收录的最长单词。这是矽肺病的英文学名全称，silicosis(矽肺病)的“加长版”。矽肺病是一种因为吸入细微矽尘导致肺部发炎的疾病。尽管这个单词被收入字典，但一般来说，人们认为这个名称多此一举，是为了获得最长英语单词的头衔而杜撰的。

　　METHIONYLTHREONYLTHREONYGLUTAMINYLARGINYL … ISOLEUCINE

　　肌联蛋白

　　Note the ellipses. All told, the full chemical name for the human protein titin is 189,819 letters, and takes about three-and-a-half hours to pronounce. The problem with including chemical names is that there’s essentially no limit to how long they can be. For example, naming a single strand of DNA, with its millions and millions of repeating base pairs, could eventually tab out at well over 1 billion letters.

　　注意此处的省略号。人体肌联蛋白的完整化学名称总共有189819个字母，十八万九千八百一十九个!对，你没看错，就是189819个字母!读完需要三个半小时。

　　这么坑爹的单词是怎么诞生的?这就要从IUPAC命名法说起了。把化学名称列出来的问题是，其长度基本上没有限制。例如，根据一串DNA所包含的数百万重复碱基对为其命名，最终取出来的名字可能超过10亿个字母。

　　这个世界上有一个名叫International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry(国际纯粹与应用化学联合会)的组织，它最有名的工作就是定义化学等领域的专有名词。它出过一本“蓝宝书”(你没看错，它的外号就是The Blue Book)IUPAC Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry，也就是《IUPAC有机化学命名法》。

　　LOPADOTEMACHOSELACHOGALEOKRANIOLEIPSAN …P TERYGON

　　大乱炖

　　The longest word ever to appear in literature comes from Aristophanes’ play, Assemblywomen, published in 391 BC. The Greek word tallies 171 letters, but translates to 183 in English. This mouthful refers to a fictional fricassee comprised of rotted dogfish head, wrasse, wood pigeon, and the roasted head of a dabchick, among other culinary morsels.

　　文学作品中的最长单词出自阿里斯多芬尼斯于公元前391年发表的剧作《女议员》。这个希腊单词有171个字母，翻译成英文单词后变为183个字母。这个冗长而拗口的单词指的是一道虚构的大炖菜，包含了腐烂的狗鯊头、隆头鱼、斑尾林鸽以及烤小䴙䴘头和其他烹饪食物。