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18-letter words containing a, s, u, m

  • conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.
  • considered harmful — (programming, humour)   A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
  • cool as a cucumber — very calm; self-possessed
  • costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
  • counterculturalism — The counterculture movement or lifestyle.
  • court of st. james — the British royal court
  • creeping featurism — (jargon)   /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
  • cultural pluralism — a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences.
  • cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
  • cumulative scoring — a method of scoring in which the score of a partnership is taken as the sum of their scores on all hands played.
  • customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
  • customs and excise — Customs and Excise is a British government department which is responsible for collecting taxes on imported and exported goods. Compare Customs Service.
  • delmarva peninsula — a peninsula of the northeast US, between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic
  • desiderius erasmus — Desiderius [des-i-deer-ee-uh s] /ˌdɛs ɪˈdɪər i əs/ (Show IPA), 1466?–1536, Dutch humanist, scholar, theologian, and writer.
  • destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
  • dia de los muertos — Day of the Dead.
  • diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
  • diatomaceous earth — an unconsolidated form of diatomite
  • dicalcium silicate — a component of cement, 2CaO⋅SiO 2 , also used to neutralize acid soils.
  • dietary supplement — a substance taken in addition to what you eat in order to promote health
  • digital humanities — (used with a singular verb) the study of literature, philosophy, etc., as facilitated by computer technology or digital media: Digital humanities uses data analysis to find patterns in large bodies of text. the set of methodologies used in such scholarship.
  • diplomatic shuttle — a series of diplomatic visits to other states made by an official, such as an ambassador or envoy
  • disodium phosphate — sodium phosphate (def 2).
  • dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
  • elementary student — primary school pupil
  • entrepreneurialism — The spirit or state of acting in an entrepreneurial manner.
  • ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
  • euclid's algorithm — (algorithm)   (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers. It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b) To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12. This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).
  • extemporaneousness — The degree or property of being extemporaneous.
  • fascicular cambium — cambium that develops within the vascular bundles, producing secondary xylem and phloem.
  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • first class module — (programming)   A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.
  • fitzwilliam museum — a museum, attached to Cambridge University and founded in 1816, noted esp for its paintings and collections devoted to the applied arts
  • fixed-focus camera — a camera with an unadjustable focal length and with a relatively large depth of field.
  • fu manchu mustache — a mustache whose ends droop to the chin.
  • gamblers anonymous — an organization that holds group meetings to help people who are addicted to gambling
  • gamma distribution — a continuous two-parameter distribution from which the chi-square and exponential distributions are derived, written Gamma (α. β), where α and β are greater than zero, and defined in terms of the gamma function
  • gastroduodenostomy — See under gastroenterostomy.
  • give someone pause — to make someone hesitant or uncertain
  • going to jerusalem — musical chairs.
  • grampian mountains — a mountain system of central Scotland, extending from the southwest to the northeast and separating the Highlands from the Lowlands. Highest peak: Ben Nevis, 1344 m (4408 ft)
  • greenhouse warming — the increase in the mean temperature of the earth attributed to the greenhouse effect
  • gulf stream system — a major ocean-current system consisting of the Gulf Stream and the Florida and North Atlantic currents.
  • gum digger's spear — a long steel probe used by gum diggers digging for kauri gum
  • handlebar mustache — A handlebar mustache is a long thick mustache with curled ends.
  • heat of combustion — the heat evolved when one mole of a substance is burnt in oxygen at constant volume
  • hemidemisemiquaver — a sixty-fourth note.
  • honeysuckle family — the plant family Caprifoliaceae, typified by shrubs and woody vines having opposite leaves, clusters of usually flaring, narrow, tubular flowers, and various types of fruit, and including the elder, honeysuckle, snowberry, twinflower, and viburnum.
  • honour moderations — (at Oxford University) the first public examination, in which candidates are placed into one of three classes of honours
  • human rights group — a group that campaigns for human rights
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