18-letter words containing i, c, h, t, y, o
- lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
- magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
- methylene chloride — a colorless, volatile liquid, CH 2 Cl 2 , used chiefly as a solvent, as a refrigerant, and as a local anesthetic in dentistry.
- octachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of twelve isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing eight chlorine atoms.
- officer of the day — an officer who has charge of the guard and prisoners on an assigned day at a military installation. Abbreviation: OD, O.D., O.O.D.
- old curiosity shop — a novel (1840–41) by Dickens.
- ophthalmologically — In an ophthalmological manner.
- orthopedic surgery — corrective operation on bones or joints
- ovariohysterectomy — Surgical removal of the ovaries and uterus.
- pathologic anatomy — the branch of pathology dealing with the morphologic changes in tissues.
- peter tschaikowsky — Peter Ilyich [il-yich] /ˈɪl yɪtʃ/ (Show IPA), Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich.
- phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
- phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- physical education — systematic instruction in sports, exercises, and hygiene given as part of a school or college program.
- physical inventory — To carry out a physical inventory is to count all the stock on hand.
- polychromatophilic — having an affinity for more than one kind of stain, especially for acid, neutral, and basic stains, as polychromatophilic erythroblasts characteristic of pernicious anemia.
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
- psychopathological — the science or study of mental disorders.
- psychotechnologist — a specialist in psychotechnology
- psychotherapeutics — psychotherapy.
- quite the contrary — not at all, the very opposite
- rhyming dictionary — a specialist dictionary organized by the final sounds of words, used to write poetry
- rotary clothesline — an apparatus of radiating spokes that support lines on which clothes are hung to dry
- scottish secretary — the Secretary of State for Scotland, head of the Scotland Office, a UK government department with responsibility for some Scottish affairs
- sling psychrometer — a psychrometer so designed that the wet-bulb thermometer can be ventilated, to expedite evaporation, by whirling in the air.
- sodium thiocyanate — a white powder or colorless, deliquescent crystals, NaSCN, used chiefly in organic synthesis and in medicine in the treatment of hypertension.
- spectroheliography — the process of obtaining an image of the sun in light of a particular wavelength, such as calcium or hydrogen, showing the distribution of the element over the surface and in the solar atmosphere, using a spectroheliograph
- spherical geometry — the branch of geometry that deals with figures on spherical surfaces.
- stoichiometrically — of or relating to stoichiometry.
- stokely carmichael — Hoagland Howard [hohg-luh nd] /ˈhoʊg lənd/ (Show IPA), ("Hoagy") 1899–1981, U.S. songwriter and musician.
- strathclyde region — a former local government region in W Scotland: formed in 1975 from Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire, Buteshire, Dunbartonshire, and parts of Argyllshire, Ayrshire, and Stirlingshire; replaced in 1996 by the council areas of Glasgow, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, Argyll and Bute, East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, and East Ayrshire
- synthetic division — a simplified procedure for dividing a polynomial by a linear polynomial.
- synthetic geometry — elementary geometry, as distinct from analytic geometry.
- systematic phoneme — a phonological unit in generative phonology representing an underlying form that takes into account the relationship between phonological patterns and morphological variation, as the unit underlying the second vowel in both derive and derivative.
- the encyclopedists — the writers of the French Encyclopedia (1751-72) edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, which contained the advanced ideas of the period
- the family compact — the ruling oligarchy in Upper Canada in the early 19th century
- the kinetic theory — a theory of gases postulating that they consist of particles of negligible size moving at random and undergoing elastic collisions
- the-cocktail-party — a play in verse (1950) by T. S. Eliot.
- thirty-second note — a note having 1/32 of the time value of a whole note; demi-semiquaver.
- thirty-second rest — a rest equal in value to a thirty-second note.
- to lay it on thick — If someone is laying it on thick or is laying it on, they are exaggerating a statement, experience, or emotion in order to try to impress people.
- to take the mickey — If you take the mickey out of someone or something, you make fun of them, usually in an unkind way.
- vectorcardiography — a method of determining the direction and magnitude of the electrical forces of the heart.
- warehouse capacity — the amount of storage space in a warehouse
- with flying colors — with flying colors, with an overwhelming victory, triumph, or success: He passed the test with flying colors.