14-letter words containing m, a, s, r, k
- saigo takamori — 1828–77, Japanese samurai, who led (1868) the coup that restored imperial government. In 1877 he reluctantly led a samurai rebellion, committing suicide when it failed
- scratch monkey — (humour) As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
- snake mackerel — an elongate, deep-sea fish, Gempylus serpens, inhabiting tropical and temperate seas, having jutting jaws and strong teeth.
- sonderkommando — a group of prisoners assigned to collect belongings and dispose of the bodies of other prisoners who had died or been killed.
- spark spectrum — a spectrum formed from the light produced by an electric spark, characteristic of the gas or vapor through which the spark passes.
- speaking terms — if you are on speaking terms with someone, you are quite friendly with them and often talk to them
- steam cracking — Steam cracking is the main method of breaking down large molecules of hydrocarbons, in which a gaseous or liquid hydrocarbon is diluted with steam and then heated.
- steamer basket — a gift basket of fruit, sweets, and the like, often including champagne, sent to a person departing on a trip, especially by ship.
- stocking frame — a type of knitting machine
- struck measure — a measure, especially of grain, level with the top of a receptacle.
- test marketing — to offer (a new product) for sale, usually in a limited area, in order to ascertain and evaluate consumer response.
- the kama sutra — an ancient Hindu text on erotic pleasure and other topics
- umbrella skirt — a full skirt with many gores that flare gradually from the waist to the hem.