双语阅读：最长的英文单词有多“丧心病狂”？

1. 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，读完需要三个半小时。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。

2. 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，翻译成英语单词后变为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??头和其他烹饪食物。

3. 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。

4. PARASTRATIOSPHECOMYIA STRATIOSPHECOMYIOIDES

水虻

The longest accepted binomial construction, at 42 letters, is a species of soldier fly native to Thailand.

Parastratiosphecomyia sphecomyioides是英语中公认的最长（生物学）二种名称结构，包含42个字母，指的是一种源自泰国的水虻。

5. PSEUDOPSEUDOHYPOPARATHYROIDISM

假性甲状旁腺功能减退

This 30-letter thyroid disorder is the longest non-coined word to appear in a major dictionary.

这种甲状腺功能紊乱病症的英文名由30个字母组成，是主流字典中收录的最长非杜撰词。

6. FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION

轻蔑

By virtue of having one more letter than antidisestablishmentarianism, this is the longest non-technical English word. A mash-up of five Latin roots, it refers to the act of describing something as having little or no value. While it made the cut in the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster volumes refuse to recognize it, chalking up its existence to little more than linguistic ephemera.

这个单词凭借“一字之差”，超过antidisestablishmentarianism（反对教会与国家分开学说），成为最长的非技术性英语单词。它由5个拉丁语词根组成，用来形容认为某件事物没有什么价值。虽然这个单词被《牛津英语词典》收录，但《韦氏词典》却将其拒之门外，因为它在英语中不过是一个“昙花一现”的单词。