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14-letter words containing m, o, c, a, s

  • 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.
  • second baseman — the player whose position is second base.
  • second chamber — the parliament of the Netherlands, consisting of an upper chamber (First Chamber) and a lower chamber (Second Chamber)
  • secondary beam — a beam of particles of one kind selected from the group of particles produced when a beam of particles from an accelerator (primary beam) strikes a target.
  • self-dominance — rule; control; authority; ascendancy.
  • semi-automatic — partly automatic.
  • semi-dominance — incomplete dominance.
  • semi-nocturnal — active at night (opposed to diurnal): nocturnal animals.
  • semi-socialism — a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
  • semicommercial — of, relating to, or characterized by limited marketing of an experimental product
  • semiofficially — in a semiofficial manner
  • semiologically — in a semiological manner; in a way that pertains to semiology
  • semito-hamitic — a former name for the Afro-Asiatic family of languages
  • service a room — If you service a room, you clean it and change the towels and bed linen in it.
  • servomechanism — an electronic control system in which a hydraulic, pneumatic, or other type of controlling mechanism is actuated and controlled by a low-energy signal.
  • shalach manoth — the practice of giving gifts to one another or to the needy on Purim.
  • ship's company — company (def 11).
  • shooting match — a contest in marksmanship.
  • shouting match — a loud, often abusive quarrel or argument.
  • showplace home — a historic house
  • simaroubaceous — belonging to the Simaroubaceae, the quassia family of plants.
  • simchath torah — a Jewish festival, celebrated on the 23rd day of Tishri, being the 9th day of Sukkoth, that marks the completion of the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah in the synagogue and the beginning of the new cycle.
  • simplification — to make less complex or complicated; make plainer or easier: to simplify a problem.
  • slalom descent — a winding descent
  • smart sanction — a sanction intended to affect only a particular area of a country's activities or economy
  • smoked haddock — haddock that has been cured by treating with smoke
  • smoking jacket — a loose-fitting jacket for men, often of a heavy fabric and trimmed with braid, worn indoors, especially as a lounging jacket.
  • social climber — a person who attempts to gain admission into a group with a higher social standing.
  • social dumping — the practice of allowing employers to lower wages and reduce employees' benefits in order to attract and retain employment and investment
  • social realism — a style of painting, especially of the 1930s in the U.S., in which the scenes depicted typically convey a message of social or political protest edged with satire.
  • social-compact — the voluntary agreement among individuals by which, according to any of various theories, as of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau, organized society is brought into being and invested with the right to secure mutual protection and welfare or to regulate the relations among its members.
  • sockeye salmon — an important food fish, Oncorhynchus nerka, inhabiting the North Pacific.
  • sodium citrate — a white, crystalline or granular, water-soluble, odorless solid, Na 3 C 6 H 5 O 7 ⋅2H 2 O, having a cool, saline taste: used in photography, in soft drinks, and in medicine chiefly to prevent the coagulation of blood.
  • sodium cyanide — a white, crystalline, deliquescent, water-soluble, poisonous powder, NaCN, prepared by heating sodium amide with charcoal: used chiefly in casehardening alloys, in the leaching and flotation of ore, and in electroplating.
  • sodium lactate — a water-soluble, hygroscopic salt, C 3 H 5 NaO 3 , used in solution in medicine to treat metabolic acidosis, usually by injection.
  • soft ice-cream — a softer and lighter-textured ice cream that contains more air than standard ice-cream. It was developed in Britain in the 20th century.
  • soil mechanics — the branch of civil engineering that deals with the mechanical behavior of soil and similar materials when they are compressed or sheared or when liquids flow through them.
  • somali current — a current of the Indian Ocean, flowing northward along the coast of Somalia in summer and southwestward the rest of the year.
  • source program — an original computer program written by a programmer that is converted into the equivalent object program, written in machine language, by the compiler or assembler
  • south american — a continent in the S part of the Western Hemisphere. About 6,900,000 sq. mi. (17,871,000 sq. km).
  • sowing machine — a machine that scatters seeds on land so that they may grow
  • space platform — space station.
  • spectator pump — a woman's spectator shoe, closed at the front and back, usually having a medium or medium-high heel.
  • spermatic cord — the cord by which a testis is suspended in the scrotum, containing the vas deferens and the blood vessels and nerves of the testis.
  • spermatothecae — a female reproductive organ in some insects
  • spirit compass — a wet compass filled with a mixture of alcohol and water.
  • staghorn sumac — a sumac, Rhus typhina, of eastern North America, having leaves that turn scarlet, orange, and purple in the autumn.
  • stereochemical — of, relating to, stereochemistry
  • stocking frame — a type of knitting machine
  • stomachfulness — the quality of being stomachful
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