Pictures of Words

One of the main reasons that I highly enjoy learning Chinese characters is that each character is a picture of a word...or an idea (the term for these is thus ideogram). Moreover, these ideograms are of great assistance in remembering things like Trichothecenes, an immunosuppressive mycotoxin that seemed to have its heyday in the Soviet days when it was used in biochemical warfare.

The Chinese translation (traditional characters) is:

單端孢霉烯類毒素

單 single (individual) + 端 end/beginning (extreme) + 孢 spore + 霉 mold + 烯 alkene + 類 type + 毒 poison + 素 normal/origin


The important structural "side chain" mentioned in the article

Mycotoxins are toxins derived from fungi (e.g. mold)

Structurally, trichothecenes are classified as alkenes [C_nH_2n]

Well, it is a toxin