英文中最长的单词.doc

What's The Longest Word In The English Language?
What's The Longest Word In The English Language?

Well, that depends on what we mean by "word." If a word is coined just to be long, like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, should that count?

Here are the top candidates. One comes from Shakespeare (of course.) In Love's Labour's Lost, a clown named Costard, arrested for having unlawful fling with a milkmaid, gets to say...

honorificabilitudinitatibus

That's 27 letters. The word means something like "loaded with honors," but, suspiciously, it comes in the middle of a conversation about wordiness, so it might be a word created to be wordy.

Here's one you know better:

antidisetablishmentarianism

It has 28 letters, but what is it? Just a bundle of suffixes and prefixes piled up into a little attention-grabbing hummock.

The most famous long word (at least in our times) is, of course, Disney's...

supercaliphragilisticexpialidocious

It uses 34 letters, but doesn't mean anything beyond giving Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke (and a slew of animated characters) something to dance to.

So what if we want a word that is not famous for being long, but a word that describes something real. What's the longest one of those?

Science writer Sam Kean, in his book The Disappearing Spoon, worked really hard on this and after much sleuthing, he landed on a word that comes not from dancing English nannies but from virus-hunting scientists. It's a protein, found in a virus, but this is a very dangerous, economically important virus, the first ever discovered...

C785H1220N212O248S2

otherwise known as the dreaded tobacco mosaic virus.

It appeared in all its lettery splendor in 1964 in a reference source for chemists, "Chemical Abstracts." It is one thousand, one hundred and eighty five letters long. So as Sam says, "Take a breath," and...

glutaminylphenylalanylvalylphenylalanylleucylserylseryl-
valyltryptophylalanylaspartylprolylisoleucylglutamyl-
leucylleucylasparaginylvalylcysteinylthreonylserylseryl-
leucylglycylasparaginylglutaminylphenylalanylglutami-
nylthreonylglutaminylglutaminylalanylarginylthreo-
nylthreonylglutaminylvalylglutaminylglutaminylpheny-
lalanylserylglutaminylvalyltryptophyllysylprolylphenyla-
lanylprolylglutaminylserylthreonylvalylarginylphenylala-
nylprolylglycylaspartylvalyltyrosyllysylvalyltyrosylargin-
yltyrosylasparaginylalanylvalylleucylaspartylprolylleucyli-
soleucylthreonylalanylleucylleucylglycylthreonylphenyla-
lanylaspartylthreonylarginylasparaginylarginylisoleucyli-
soleucylglutamylvalylglutamylasparaginylglutaminylglu-
taminylserylprolylthreonylthreonylalanylglutamylthreo-
nylleucylaspartylalanylthreonylarginylarginylvalylaspar-
tylaspartylalanylthreonylvalylalanylisoleucylarginylsery-
lalanylasparaginylisoleucylasparaginylleucylvalylasparagi-
nylglutamylleucylvalylarginylglycylthreonylglycylleucyl-
tyrosylasparaginylglutaminylasparaginylthreonylphenyla-
lanylglutamylserylmethionylserylglycylleucylvalyltrypto-
phylthreonylserylalanylprolylalanylserine

Ta-ta-boom! This has to be the champ. (I know there's a suspiciously large number of "yl" combinations in there, but that's a suffix that biochemists use to describe certain amino acids, so it's truly descriptive). Is it time to unpack the crown?

Is This Really A Word?

Well, just a sec — I'm thinking to myself, is this really a word? You can't speak it. Does anybody use it? And — not to be over-fussy, but aren't there bigger molecules than the 1,185-long mosaic virus?

Turns out, there are bigger molecules. Sam found a tryptophan protein that runs 1,913 letters — that, he says, is over 60 percent longer than the tobacco protein. Which may explain why, for awhile, the Guinness World Records folks ignored tobacco and called tryptophan the king.

Does Anyone Use It?

But that brings us to our second question. Is it being used? That's key. This is about language. Words that aren't used don't count. The tobacco virus word was used (published) in 1964. What about tryptophan? Sam, being Sam, checked himself into the Library of Congress and began looking and...

...after spending hours in the dimly lit stacks...I never located the tryptophan molecule in Chemical Abstracts. It just doesn't seem to have appeared in its full, spelled-out form. To be doubly sure, I hunted down the academic paper that announced the decoding of the tryptophan protein...and there the authors chose to abbreviate the amino acid sequence. So its full name as never appeared in print as far as I can tell, which probably explains why Guiness later rescinded the listing for it as the longest word.

Since the sixties, even though there are bigger, longer molecules that could be words, science journals don't bother to spell them because, says Sam, it would use up enormous amounts of paper and space and frankly, it's just too tedious.

Tobacco It Is!

Therefore, because it slipped into a publication early, the tobacco virus — sound the trumpets! — gets the nod. It is the longest word in our language.

Quibble, Quibble, Quibble

Final quibble: The tobacco virus "word" is entirely technical. Its spelling is essentially a syllabic string of abbreviations for amino acids.

Isn't there a longish word that is just, you know, a word? (but that's not supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?)

Well, here's one that beats Disney. Sam found it in the Oxford English Dictionary. Their longest non-technical word is:

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

It's a disease. Or rather, it's slang for the disease you get when you inhale silicon dioxide which makes it hard to breathe. Unfortunately it was created to win a puzzle contest in 1935 and therefore doesn't pass some peoples' test for "real" words. Like supercalifragilisticexpealidotious, it might be what they sneeringly call a "trophy" word, something somebody made up to solve a riddle, not an organic, up-from-the-streets, authentic word.

So that leaves us — for the longest non-technical word in popular English, back with Ms. Poppins. She (and her cockney friend Burt) are holding on to their non-technical crown — which you'd expect. After all, she is practically perfect。

英语中最长的单词到底是什么？
What's The Longest Word In The English Language?
英语中最长的单词是什么？
Well, that depends on what we mean by "word." If a word is coined just to be long, like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, should that count?
那要看我们理解中的“单词”是什么意思。如果一个单词是为了成为长词而被创造出来的，比如说supercalifragilisticexpialidocious，这算不算？
Here are the top candidates. One comes from Shakespeare (of course.) In Love's Labour's Lost, a clown named Costard, arrested for having unlawful fling with a milkmaid, gets to say...
这里有两个候选单词。其中一个来自莎士比亚（那当然）。在《空爱一场》（Love's Labour's Lost）中，有一个叫“英国大苹果”（Costard）的小丑，他因为和一个挤奶女工之间的风流韵事而被捕，他说……

That's 27 letters. The word means something like "loaded with honors," but, suspiciously, it comes in the middle of a conversation about wordiness, so it might be a word created to be wordy.
它有27个字母，意思类似于“充满了荣耀”。但是，它很可疑地出现在一个关于废话的谈话中，所以可能是故意为了罗嗦而被创造出来的。
Here's one you know better:
你会更熟悉这个单词：

It has 28 letters, but what is it? Just a bundle of suffixes and prefixes piled up into a little attention-grabbing hummock.
它有28个字母，但是它又是什么呢？只不过是由后缀和前缀堆成的吸引人眼球的小山。
The most famous long word (at least in our times) is, of course, Disney's...
最著名的长词（至少在我们的年代）当然是，迪斯尼的……

It uses 34 letters, but doesn't mean anything beyond giving Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke (and a slew of animated characters) something to dance to.
它用到了34个字母，但是除了使朱莉·安德鲁斯和迪克·凡·戴克（以及一群动画人物）（指电影《欢乐满人间》（Mary Poppins）中的主演——译者注）可以随之起舞之外，没有其它意义。
So what if we want a word that is not famous for being long, but a word that describes something real. What's the longest one of those?
所以，如果我们想要的不是因为长而出名的单词，而是一个描述真实的事物的词呢？它们中最长的是什么？
Science writer Sam Kean, in his book The Disappearing Spoon, worked really hard on this and after much sleuthing, he landed on a word that comes not from dancing English nannies but from virus-hunting scientists. It's a protein, found in a virus, but this is a very dangerous, economically important virus, the first ever discovered...
在《消失中的勺子》一书中，科学作者萨姆·基恩（Sam Kean），在这上面花了很多的力气。在找了很久之后，他不是从跳舞的英国老奶奶，而是从寻找病毒的科学家那里找到了一个词。这是一个在病毒中找到的蛋白质，但这是一个非常危险的、具有很重要经济价值的病毒，首次被发现的……

otherwise known as the dreaded tobacco mosaic virus.
也被称为烟草花叶病毒。
It appeared in all its lettery splendor in 1964 in a reference source for chemists, "Chemical Abstracts." It is one thousand, one hundred and eighty five letters long. So as Sam says, "Take a breath," and...
它于1964年以其眩目的长度出现在化学家们的参考资料《化学摘要》中。它有1,185单词那么长。用萨姆的话来说，“深呼吸，”然后……

Ta-ta-boom! This has to be the champ. (I know there's a suspiciously large number of "yl" combinations in there, but that's a suffix that biochemists use to describe certain amino acids, so it's truly descriptive). Is it time to unpack the crown?
哈！它绝对是冠军。（我知道有很可疑的很多的“yl”组合在里面，但那是生物化学家用来描述某种氨基酸的后缀，所以它是具有描述性的）。是否是时候拿出皇冠了？
Is This Really A Word?
这真的是一个词吗？
Well, just a sec — I'm thinking to myself, is this really a word? You can't speak it. Does anybody use it? And — not to be over-fussy, but aren't there bigger molecules than the 1,185-long mosaic virus?
等一下——我在想，这是一个单词吗？你能说出它吗？有人使用它吗？并且——为了不至于显得大惊小怪——难道就没有比这个1,185个字母的花叶病毒还要大的分子了吗？
Turns out, there are bigger molecules. Sam found a tryptophan protein that runs 1,913 letters — that, he says, is over 60 percent longer than the tobacco protein. Which may explain why, for awhile, the Guinness World Records folks ignored tobacco and called tryptophan the king.
实际上，还有更大的分子。萨姆找到了一个1,913个字母的色氨酸蛋白质（的单词），比那个烟草蛋白（的单词）还要长百分之六十。这也许解释了为什么吉尼斯世界纪录那么久都忽视了烟草（病毒的单词），却给色氨酸（蛋白的单词）封王。
Does Anyone Use It?
有人使用它吗？
But that brings us to our second question. Is it being used? That's key. This is about language. Words that aren't used don't count. The tobacco virus word was used (published) in 1964. What about tryptophan? Sam, being Sam, checked himself into the Library of Congress and began looking and...
但我们又遇到了第二个问题。有人使用它吗？那很关键。我们在讨论的是语言，没人使用的词不能算。那个烟草病毒的单词在1964年被使用（出版）过。那色氨酸呢？萨姆到美国国会图书馆开始寻找并且……
...after spending hours in the dimly lit stacks...I never located the tryptophan molecule in Chemical Abstracts. It just doesn't seem to have appeared in its full, spelled-out form. To be doubly sure, I hunted down the academic paper that announced the decoding of the tryptophan protein...and there the authors chose to abbreviate the amino acid sequence. So its full name as never appeared in print as far as I can tell, which probably explains why Guiness later rescinded the listing for it as the longest word.
“……在昏暗的书架间花了几个小时之后……我最终没有在《化学摘要》中找到那色氨酸蛋白的分子。它似乎没有被完整地拼出过。为保险起见，我找到了那个宣布解码了那个色氨酸蛋白的学术论文……在论文中作者们选择了这个氨基酸序列的缩写形式。所以据我所知，它的全称没有在印刷品中出现过，也许可以解释为什么吉尼斯纪录后来将其从最长单词的名录上面撤了下来。”
Since the sixties, even though there are bigger, longer molecules that could be words, science journals don't bother to spell them because, says Sam, it would use up enormous amounts of paper and space and frankly, it's just too tedious.
萨姆说，自从六十年代以来，尽管有更大、更长的分子可以组成单词，但是科学期刊已不再将它们拼写出来，那会用掉数量庞大的纸张和空间，而且，坦白说，那太费劲了。
Tobacco It Is!
就是烟草烟叶病毒了！
Therefore, because it slipped into a publication early, the tobacco virus — sound the trumpets! — gets the nod. It is the longest word in our language.
因为它及时地潜入了一个出版物，烟草烟叶病毒——吹响号角！——被选中了。它是我们的语言（英语）中最常的单词。
Quibble, Quibble, Quibble
吹毛求疵
Final quibble: The tobacco virus "word" is entirely technical. Its spelling is essentially a syllabic string of abbreviations for amino acids.
最后：那个烟草病毒的“单词”完全是专业名词。它的拼写实质上是各种氨基酸的缩写所构成的一个音节串。
Isn't there a longish word that is just, you know, a word? (but that's not supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?)
难道就没有一个纯粹的长一点的单词吗？（但不是supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.）
Well, here's one that beats Disney. Sam found it in the Oxford English Dictionary. Their longest non-technical word is:
这里有一个词可以打败迪斯尼的那个。萨姆在牛津英语词典中找到了它，最长的非专业名词的单词是：

It's a disease. Or rather, it's slang for the disease you get when you inhale silicon dioxide which makes it hard to breathe. Unfortunately it was created to win a puzzle contest in 1935 and therefore doesn't pass some peoples' test for "real" words. Like supercalifragilisticexpealidotious, it might be what they sneeringly call a "trophy" word, something somebody made up to solve a riddle, not an organic, up-from-the-streets, authentic word.
这是一种疾病。或者，当你因为吸入二氧化硅而难以呼吸时所得疾病的俚语称谓。不幸的是，它是在1935年为赢得一个谜语竞赛而造的，所以对有些人来说，不算真正的单词。就像supercalifragilisticexpealidotious，它可能是被人们轻蔑地叫做“战利品”单词的词——有人为了解答谜语而造的单词，而不是一个有机的，从日常生活中来的，真实的词。