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22-letter words containing h, i, r, s, u

  • on a shoestring budget — with very little money to spend
  • ousterhout's dichotomy — (language)   John Ousterhout's division of high-level languages into "system programming languages" and "scripting languages". This distinction underlies the design of his language Tcl. System programming languages (or "applications languages") are strongly typed, allow arbitrarily complex data structures, and programs in them are compiled, and are meant to operate largely independently of other programs. Prototypical system programming languages are C and Modula-2. By contrast, scripting languages (or "glue languages") are weakly typed or untyped, have little or no provision for complex data structures, and programs in them ("scripts") are interpreted. Scripts need to interact either with other programs (often as glue) or with a set of functions provided by the interpreter, as with the file system functions provided in a UNIX shell and with Tcl's GUI functions. Prototypical scripting languages are AppleScript, C Shell, MS-DOS batch files and Tcl. Many believe that this is a highly arbitrary dichotomy, and refer to it as "Ousterhout's fallacy" or "Ousterhout's false dichotomy". While strong-versus-weak typing, data structure complexity, and independent versus stand-alone might be said to be unrelated features, the usual critique of Ousterhout's dichotomy is of its distinction of compilation versus interpretation, since neither semantics nor syntax depend significantly on whether code is compiled into machine-language, interpreted, tokenized, or byte-compiled at the start of each run, or any mixture of these. Many languages fall between being interpreted or compiled (e.g. Lisp, Forth, UCSD Pascal, Perl, and Java). This makes compilation versus interpretation a dubious parameter in a taxonomy of programming languages.
  • peanut-butter sandwich — a sandwich with a filling of peanut-butter
  • phosphorus trichloride — a clear, colorless, fuming liquid, PCl 3 , used chiefly in organic synthesis as a chlorinating agent.
  • public housing project — a group of homes for poorer families which is funded and controlled by the local government
  • public service vehicle — a bus or coach
  • pull/bring sb up short — If something pulls you up short or brings you up short, it makes you suddenly stop what you are doing.
  • put the frighteners on — to intimidate
  • quantum chromodynamics — a quantum field theory that describes quarks and gluons and their interactions, with the color of the quarks playing a role analogous to that of electric charge. Abbreviation: QCD. Also called chromodynamics. Compare color (def 18).
  • rheumatoid spondylitis — ankylosing spondylitis.
  • saturday night special — a cheap, small-caliber handgun that is easily obtainable and concealable.
  • saturday-night special — a cheap, small-caliber handgun that is easily obtainable and concealable.
  • save the children fund — a development agency which raises money for deprived children around the world
  • search the fucking web — (web, jargon)   (Always abbreviated STFW) A response implying that an inquirer could have easily found an answer to his question using Google or some other web search engine. It is now often quicker and more productive to search the World-Wide Web than to RTFM.
  • self-sustaining growth — economic growth that maintains itself without intervention
  • shaken but not stirred — If you say that someone has been shaken but not stirred by an experience, you mean that they have been slightly disturbed or emotionally affected by it, but not deeply enough to change their behaviour or way of thinking.
  • south african republic — former name of Transvaal.
  • south atlantic current — an eastward-flowing ocean current formed by the merging of the Brazil Current and the southward-flowing current near the Falkland Islands and forming the southern part of the general circulation of the South Atlantic Ocean.
  • split-screen technique — a cinematic device by which two or more complete images are projected simultaneously onto separate parts of the screen
  • surface effect vehicle — ACV (def 2).
  • synchronic linguistics — the branch of linguistics that analyzes the structure of a language or languages as static, at a given point in their history
  • the authorized version — an English translation of the Bible published in 1611 under James I
  • the edinburgh festival — an arts festival held in Edinburgh in August
  • the muslim brotherhood — a transnational Islamic religious and political organization dedicated to the establishment of a nation based on Islamic principles, founded in Egypt in 1928
  • to ride roughshod over — If you say that someone is riding roughshod over a person or their views, you disapprove of them because they are using their power or authority to do what they want, completely ignoring that person's wishes.
  • to twiddle your thumbs — If you say that someone is twiddling their thumbs, you mean that they do not have anything to do and are waiting for something to happen.
  • tripotassium phosphate — any of the three orthophosphates of potassium ((potassium monophosphate) (K 2 HPO 4), (potassium diphosphate) (KH 2 PO 4), and (tripotassium phosphate) (K 3 PO 4) )
  • university of michigan — (body, education)   A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. 70% of the University's students graduated in the top 10% of their high school class. 90% rank in the top 20% of their high school class. 60% of the students receive financial aid. The main Ann Arbor Campus lies in the Huron River valley, 40 miles west of Detroit. The campus boasts 2700 acres with 200 buildings, six million volumes in 23 libraries, nine museums, seven hospitals, hundreds of laboratories and institutes, and over 18000 microcomputers.
  • unreasonable behaviour — conduct by a spouse sufficient to cause the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage
  • wardour street english — affectedly archaic speech or writing
  • washington court house — a city in SW Ohio.
  • whitchurch-stouffville — a town in SW Ontario, in S Canada, N of Toronto.
  • white australia policy — an unofficial term for an immigration policy designed to restrict the entry of non-White people into Australia
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