18-letter words containing g, u, n
- earned run average — a measure of the effectiveness of a pitcher, obtained by dividing the number of earned runs scored against the pitcher by the number of innings pitched and multiplying the result by nine. A pitcher yielding three earned runs in nine innings has an earned run average of 3.00. Abbreviation: ERA, era.
- eastern algonquian — a subgroup of the Algonquian language family, comprising the languages spoken aboriginally from Nova Scotia to northeastern North Carolina.
- eighty-column mind — (abuse) The sort said to be possessed by persons for whom the transition from punched card to paper tape was traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet). It is said that these people, including (according to an old joke) the founder of IBM, will be buried "face down, 9-edge first" (the 9-edge being the bottom of the card). This directive is inscribed on IBM's 1402 and 1622 card readers and is referenced in a famous bit of doggerel called "The Last Bug", the climactic lines of which are as follows: He died at the console Of hunger and thirst. Next day he was buried, Face down, 9-edge first. The eighty-column mind is thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's customer base and its thinking. See fear and loathing, card walloper.
- eighty-twenty rule — (programming) The program-design version of the law of diminishing returns. The 80/20 rule says that roughly 80% of the problem can be solved with 20% of the effort that it would take to solve the whole problem. For example, parsing e-mail addresses in "From:" lines in e-mail messages is notoriously difficult if you follow the RFC 2822 specification. However, about 60% of actual "From:" lines are in the format "From: Their Name <[email protected]>", with a far more constrained idea of what can be in "user" or "host" than in RFC 2822. Another 25% just add double-quotes around "Their Name". Matching just those two patterns would thus cover 85% of "From:" lines, with a tiny portion of the code required to fully implement RFC2822. (Adding support for "From: [email protected]" and "From: [email protected] (Their Name) " brings coverage to almost 100%, leaving only really baroque things that RFC-2822 permits, like "From: Pete(A wonderful \) chap)
- emergent evolution — the doctrine that, in the course of evolution, some entirely new properties, such as life and consciousness, appear at certain critical points, usually because of an unpredictable rearrangement of the already existing entities
- energy consumption — amount of energy used
- engelbart, douglas — Douglas Engelbart
- equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
- ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
- euglenoid movement — the expansion and contraction of the cell body of various flagellates
- evolution strategy — (ES) A kind of evolutionary algorithm where individuals (potential solutions) are encoded by a set of real-valued "object variables" (the individual's "genome"). For each object variable an individual also has a "strategy variable" which determines the degree of mutation to be applied to the corresponding object variable. The strategy variables also mutate, allowing the rate of mutation of the object variables to vary. An ES is characterised by the population size, the number of offspring produced in each generation and whether the new population is selected from parents and offspring or only from the offspring. ES were invented in 1963 by Ingo Rechenberg, Hans-Paul Schwefel at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) while searching for the optimal shapes of bodies in a flow.
- exhaustive testing — (programming) Executing a program with all possible combinations of inputs or values for program variables.
- fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
- 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.
- fehling's solution — a blue solution of copper sulfate, Rochelle salt, and sodium hydroxide, used to test for the presence of a sugar, aldehyde, etc.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- flash butt welding — a method of welding metal edge-to-edge with a powerful electric flash followed by the application of pressure.
- floating underflow — underflow
- fluegelman, andrew — Andrew Fluegelman
- forethoughtfulness — The condition of being forethoughtful.
- forget-me-not blue — a shade of blue similar to the shade of the flowers of a forget-me-not
- foundation garment — an undergarment, as a girdle or corset, worn by women to support or give shape to the contours of the body.
- foundling hospital — an institutional home for foundlings.
- four-legged friend — a four-legged animal, esp a dog
- fracture toughness — The fracture toughness of a material is how likely it is to resist fracture.
- free-range poultry — poultry kept in natural nonintensive conditions
- from the ground up — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.
- fuel-saving device — a device that increases the fuel efficiency of a vehicle, so that it uses less fuel for a further distance
- fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
- fuming nitric acid — a colorless, yellowish, or brownish fuming corrosive liquid, usually prepared from nitric acid by the addition of excess nitrogen dioxide: used in organic synthesis for nitration, and as an oxidizer in liquid propellants for rockets.
- functional program — (language) A program employing the functional programming approach or written in a functional language.
- functional testing — (testing) (Or "black-box testing", "closed-box testing") The application of test data derived from functional requirements without regard to how the system is implemented.
- funding operations — the conversion of government floating stock or short-term debt into holdings of long-term bonds
- furnishing fabrics — fabrics used to make and cover furniture
- gabriele dannunzio — Gabriele [Italian gah-bree-e-le] /Italian ˌgɑ briˈɛ lɛ/ (Show IPA), (Duca Minimo) 1863–1938, Italian soldier, novelist, and poet.
- gainful employment — an occupation that pays an income
- galactic longitude — the angular distance in degrees measured eastward in the galactic plane from a radius drawn from the earth as center to the constellation Sagittarius.
- 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.
- genetic counseling — the counseling of individuals with established or potential genetic problems, concerned with inheritance patterns and risks to future offspring.
- genital mutilation — any type of cutting or removal of all or some of the genital organs, especially excision of the clitoris.
- geodetic surveying — the surveying of the earth's surface, making allowance for its curvature and giving an accurate framework for smaller-scale surveys
- get off the ground — project: start well
- get one's irish up — of, relating to, or characteristic of Ireland, its inhabitants, or their language.
- get the upper hand — gain advantage
- give someone curry — to assault (a person) verbally or physically
- give someone pause — to make someone hesitant or uncertain
- glomerulonephritis — a kidney disease affecting the capillaries of the glomeruli, characterized by albuminuria, edema, and hypertension.
- gnu public licence — (legal) Properly known as the General Public License. Improperly known as the General Public Virus.