24-letter words containing a, g, r, o, l, i
- like a red rag to a bull — If you describe something as a red rag to a bull, you mean that it is certain to make a particular person or group very angry.
- local government officer — an employee of a local council
- logical block addressing — (storage) (LBA) A hard disk sector addressing scheme used on all SCSI hard disks, and on ATA-2 conforming IDE hard disks. The addressing conversion is performed by the hard disk firmware. Prior to LBA, combined limitations of IBM PC BIOS and ATA restricted the useful capacity of IDE hard disks on IBM PCs and compatibles to 1024 cylinders * 63 sectors per track * 16 heads * 512 bytes per sector = 528 million bytes = 504 megabytes. Modern BIOSes select LBA mode automatically, and work around the 1024-cylinder BIOS limit by representing a hard disk to the OS as having e.g. half as many cylinders and twice as many heads. However, there is still an unbreakable BIOS disk size limit of 1024 cylinders * 63 sectors per track * 256 heads * 512 bytes per sector = 8 gigabytes, but modern OSes (including Windows 9x, Windows NT and Linux) are not affected by it, since they issue direct LBA-based calls, bypassing the BIOS hard disk services completely.
- long-spined sea scorpion — Cottus bubalis or Taurulus bubalis
- long-term care insurance — Long-term care insurance is insurance for people who may require long-term health or nursing care, and pays for things such as nursing homes and adult day care.
- low voltage differential — (hardware) (LVD) A method of driving SCSI cables that will be formalised in the SCSI-3 specifications. LVD uses less power than the current differential drive (HVD), is less expensive and will allow the higher speeds of Ultra-2 SCSI. LVD requires 3.3 Volts DC instead of 5 Volts DC for HVD.
- magnetothermoelectricity — thermoelectricity induced or affected by a magnetic field.
- medium-scale integration — MSI.
- meteorological satellite — an artificial satellite that gathers data concerning the earth's atmosphere and surface in order to aid meteorologists in understanding weather patterns and producing weather forecasts.
- multiple virtual storage — (operating system) (MVS) Release 2 of OS/VS2, called MVS because it had multiple 16 MB virtual address spaces, in contrast to SVS. MVS ran on the IBM 390 series mainframes. It became MVS/SP, then MVS/XA (with 31-bit addressing) and then MVS/ESA. MVS/Open Edition (MVS/OE), aimed at the growing open systems market, added TCP/IP and Unix support in an MVS address space, allowing users to run IBM, CICS-type applications, batch applications and Unix. MVS/ESA was repackaged as OS/390 as a marketing exercise but it's basically the same thing. Version: 5.1.
- new programming language — (language) (NEWP) A language which replaced ESPOL on the Burroughs Large System.
- nongonococcal urethritis — a widespread sexually transmitted infection of the urethra, caused by the parasite Chlamydia trachomatis, or the mycoplasm Ureaplasma urealyticum, characterized in males by painful urination and discharge from the penis and in females by frequent, painful urination and cervical erosion. Abbreviation: NGU.
- object-oriented language — object-oriented programming
- one thing led to another — You say one thing led to another when you are explaining how something happened, but you do not really want to give the details or you think people will be able to imagine the details.
- optical signal processor — optical computing
- orbital angular momentum — the component of angular momentum of an electron in an atom or a nucleon in a nucleus, arising from its orbital motion rather than from its spin.
- other things being equal — If you say 'other things being equal' or 'all things being equal' when talking about a possible situation, you mean if nothing unexpected happens or if there are no other factors which affect the situation.
- parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
- parliamentary government — government by a body of cabinet ministers who are chosen from and responsible to the legislature and act as advisers to a nominal chief of state.
- physiological atmosphere — ecosphere.
- plantation walking horse — one of a breed of saddle horses developed largely from Standardbred and Morgan stock.
- privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
- professional programming — paranoid programming
- program information file — (file format) Under Windows, a file providing information on how a non-Windows application program should be run, including how much memory should be allocated to it and what graphics interface it requires.
- programmable array logic — (hardware) (PAL) A family of fuse-programmable logic integrated circuits originally developed by MMI. Registered or combinatorial output functions are modelled in a sum of products form. Each output is a sum (logical or) of a fixed number of products (logical and) of the input signals. This structure is well suited for automatic generation of programming patterns by logic compilers. PAL devices are programmed by blowing the fuses permanently using overvoltage. Today, more complex devices based on the same original architecture are available (CPLD's for Complex PLD's) that incorporate the equivalent of several original PAL chips. PAL chips are, however, still popular due to their high speed.
- progressive assimilation — assimilation in which a preceding sound has an effect on a following one, as in shortening captain to cap'm rather than cap'n.
- pure functional language — purely functional language
- regular checking account — a checking account for which the monthly fee is usually based on the average balance maintained and the number of transactions recorded.
- revolving charge account — a charge plan offerring revolving credit.
- scalable vector graphics — (graphics, web) A W3C standard for vector graphics, based on XML.
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
- single transferable vote — of or relating to a system of voting in which voters list the candidates in order of preference. Any candidate achieving a predetermined proportion of the votes in a constituency is elected. Votes exceeding this amount and those cast for the bottom candidate are redistributed according to the stated preferences. Redistribution continues until all the seats are filled
- sth bodes ill/augurs ill — If something bodes ill or augurs ill, it gives you a reason to fear that something harmful might happen soon.
- stratificational grammar — a grammar based upon the theory that language is made up of successive strata that are interconnected by established rules.
- tagged image file format — (file format, graphics) (TIFF) A file format used for still-image bitmaps, stored in tagged fields. Application programs can use the tags to accept or ignore fields, depending on their capabilities. While TIFF was designed to be extensible, it lacked a core of useful functionality, so that most useful functions (e.g. lossless 24-bit colour) requires nonstandard, often redundant, extensions. The incompatibility of extensions has led some to expand "TIFF" as "Thousands of Incompatible File Formats". Compare GIF, PNG, JPEG.
- teacher training college — a higher-education college that specializes in teacher training
- thousand island dressing — a seasoned mayonnaise, often containing chopped pickles, pimientos, sweet peppers, hard-boiled eggs, etc.
- to lay something to rest — If you lay something such as fears or rumours to rest or if you put them to rest, you succeed in proving that they are not true.
- to light the touch paper — if someone lights the touch paper or lights the blue touch paper, they do something which causes anger or excitement
- to play your cards right — If you say that someone will achieve success if they play their cards right, you mean that they will achieve success if they act skilfully and use the advantages that they have.
- to rise to the challenge — If someone rises to the challenge, they act in response to a difficult situation which is new to them and are successful.
- transformational grammar — a system of grammatical analysis, especially a form of generative grammar, that posits the existence of deep structure and surface structure, using a set of transformational rules to derive surface structure forms from deep structure; a grammar that uses transformations to express the relations between equivalent structures.
- virtual storage extended — (operating system) (VSE, formerly DOS/VSE) is a multitasking, IBM 370-architected operating system similar to Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS). VSE run jobs in partitions rather than address spaces, and uses POWER for input/output rather than JES, but is largely similar to MVS. Subsequent VSE/ESA releases gave VSE the XA-370 channel architecture, 31-bit virtual and real storage support, and data spaces. VSE is the IBM operating system on one-third of installed IBM 4381s and a significant proportion of IBM 9370s as well. It offers transaction processing and batch processing capabilities well beyond Virtual Machine's current capabilities, and has a close affinity with MVS.
- what are you playing at? — If you ask what someone is playing at, you are angry because you think they are doing something stupid or wrong.
- work/go/run like a charm — If you say that something worked like a charm, you mean that it was very effective or successful.
- world boxing association — the international organization which regulates the sport of boxing
- world trade organization — The World Trade Organization is an international organization that encourages and regulates trade between its member states. The abbreviation WTO is also used.