24-letter words containing g, e, n, y
- preparatory to doing sth — If one action is done preparatory to another, it is done before the other action, usually as preparation for it.
- pretty amazing new stuff — (humour, communications) (PANS) What PSTN is evolving into.
- reverse annuity mortgage — a type of home mortgage under which an elderly homeowner is allowed a long-term loan in the form of monthly payments against his or her paid-off equity as collateral, repayable when the home is eventually sold. Abbreviation: RAM.
- self-fulfilling prophecy — a prophecy that comes true because of the expectation that it will
- shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
- single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
- sorrows of young werther — German Die Leiden des Jungen Werther. a romantic novel (1774) in epistolary form by Goethe.
- staggered pin grid array — (hardware) (SPGA) A style of integrated circuit socket or pin-out with a staggered grid of pins around the edge of the socket, positioned as several squares, one inside the other. SPGA is commonly used on motherboards for processors, e.g. Socket 5, Socket 7 and Socket 8. See also PGA.
- steak and kidney pudding — beefsteak and kidney in a suet pastry crust, steamed in a basin.
- syquest technology, inc. — (company, hardware) An early entrant into the removable hard disk market for personal computers. For may years SyQuest held the market, particularly as a method of transferring large desktop publisher documents to printers. SyQuest aim their products to give personal computer users "endless" hard drive space for data-intensive applications like desktop publishing, Internet information management, pre-press, multimedia, audio, video, digital photography, fast backup, data exchange, archiving, confidential data security and easy portability for the road. At the top of their current (Mar 1997) range are two drives, The SyJet 1.5 GB a 3.5 inch, double platter removable drive and the EZFlyer 230 MB also on 3.5 inch media. A cartridge holding over 4.7GB is promised before the end of 1997. In recent years they have not fared as well in the market, whilst Iomega has cornered the Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) market. Over the period 1995 to 1997 sales declined resulting in a series of losses. In the first quarter of 1997 these losses had been reduced to $6.8 million with net revenues increasing to $48.3 million. This compares to a net loss of $33.8 million, or $2.98 per share, on net revenues of $78.7 million for the same period the year before. It would appear that substantial restructuring has occurred over the past few years.
- system management server — (operating system) (SMS) Software used by Microsoft Windows NT system administrators to manage personal computers on any size network. SMS can distribute software to desktops from one central location, detect every machine on the network, track software and hardware configurations, send key information back to a central database, and perform other tasks.
- that goes without saying — that is self-evident
- the long-term unemployed — people who have no job and have not worked for a long time
- the way things are going — You can use the way things are going to indicate that you expect something to happen because of the way the present situation is developing.
- to have egg on your face — If someone has egg on their face or has egg all over their face, they have been made to look foolish.
- to have not got a prayer — If you say that someone hasn't got a prayer, you mean that it is impossible for them to succeed in what they are trying to do.
- to keep something at bay — If you keep something or someone at bay, or hold them at bay, you prevent them from reaching, attacking, or affecting you.
- 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 make boundary changes — to change the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies, because of population shifts
- total quality management — Total quality management is a set of management principles aimed at improving performance throughout a company, especially by involving employees in decision-making. The abbreviation TQM is also used.
- transpersonal psychology — a branch of psychology or psychotherapy that recognizes altered states of consciousness and transcendent experiences as a means to understand the human mind and treat psychological disordrs.
- 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.
- what are you waiting for — If you say to someone 'What are you waiting for?' you are telling them to hurry up and do something.
- you aren't gonna need it — (programming) (YAGNI) A motto of extreme programming expressing the principle that functionality should not be implemented until it is needed. The traditional waterfall model makes it difficult to add features after the specification has been signed off, tempting the specifier to add features that may never be used but which take time to program, debug, test and document.