23-letter words containing p, o, t, a, m
- implementation language — (language) (IMP) An extension of B with floating-point operations, developed by W. Davidsen at General Electric in 1970 for the GE 600. It was also cross-compiled to VAX and Intel 8080.
- in the arms of morpheus — sleeping
- informatics corporation — (company) Renamed to Sterling Software Corp.
- lead replacement petrol — a less toxic fuel introduced in 2000 for cars requiring leaded petrol
- liquefied petroleum gas — a mixture of various petroleum gases, esp propane and butane, stored as a liquid under pressure and used as an engine fuel
- lymphoblastic leukaemia — a severe blood disorder in which abnormal leukocytes are identified as immature forms of lymphocytes
- magneto-encephalography — a record of the magnetic field of the brain. Abbreviation: MEG.
- meaningful relationship — a romantic relationship based upon mutual respect and supportiveness and marked by a sense of commitment and fulfillment.
- message transport agent — Message Transfer Agent
- multimedia compact disc — (storage) (MMCD) A CD-ROM standard for storing 4.7 GB of data including video. MMCD is being developed by a large numer of computer manufacturers and is expected to be shipped in late 1996 or early 1997. Initially it will be aimed at the consumer market, then perhaps in CD-ROM format for computers, and maybe later on erasble CD.
- not put it past someone — to consider someone capable of (the action specified)
- object management group — (body) (OMG) A consortium aimed at setting standards in object-oriented programming. In 1989, this consortium, which included IBM Corporation, Apple Computer Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., mobilised to create a cross-compatible distributed object standard. The goal was a common binary object with methods and data that work using all types of development environments on all types of platforms. Using a committee of organisations, OMG set out to create the first Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) standard which appeared in 1991. As of February 1998, the latest standard is CORBA 2.2.
- osteogenesis imperfecta — a rare hereditary disease in which abnormal connective tissue development leads to fragile bones subject to fracture.
- parametric polymorphism — Polymorphism was first identified by Christopher Strachey in 1967 and developed by Hindley and Milner. For example we could specify that the argument of the "head" function was a list without specifying a type for the elements of the list. In Haskell we would write: head :: [a] -> a meaning head has type function from "list of a" to "a" where "a" is a type variable). This is known as parametric polymorphism. Polymorphic typing allows strong type checking as well as generic functions. ML in 1976 was the first language with polymorphic typing. See also generic type variable.
- parliamentary democracy — a system of government in which people elect representatives to a parliament to make laws, for example Canada and the UK
- participatory democracy — individual participation by citizens in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, especially directly rather than through elected representatives.
- pat someone on the back — to congratulate or encourage someone
- performance-related pay — salary based on individual assessment
- pest control department — the local government department responsible for controlling such pests as rats and mice
- pharmaceuticals company — a company specialising in developing and marketing pharmaceuticals
- photoelectric magnitude — the magnitude of a star determined using a photometer plus a filter to select light or other radiation of the desired wavelength
- plain old documentation — (text) (pod, occasionally "POD") A simple markup language used to embed documentation, literate programming-style, in Perl programs. Pod readers and converters are part of the standard Perl distribution and the documentation provided with Perl is all in pod format.
- planetesimal hypothesis — one of the small celestial bodies that, according to one theory (planetesimal hypothesis) were fused together to form the planets of the solar system.
- play by electronic mail — (games) A kind of game where the players use electronic mail to communicate. This may be done via a human moderator or an automatic mailing list exploder on some central machine or it may be fully distributed with each player just addressing his mail to all other players. This is a natural extension of "play by mail" games conducted via snail mail.
- polybrominated biphenyl — PBB.
- polymethyl methacrylate — polymerized methyl methacrylate.
- positive discrimination — special opportunities
- postcode discrimination — discrimination on the basis of the area where someone lives, with relation to employment, credit rating, etc
- potassium acid tartrate — cream of tartar.
- potassium monophosphate — 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) )
- presidential government — a system of government in which the powers of the president are constitutionally separate from those of the legislature.
- price out of the market — to charge so highly for as to prevent the sale, hire, etc, of
- private limited company — a company whose shares can be bought by the public
- probabilistic automaton — nondeterministic automaton
- professional misconduct — a violation of the rules or boundaries set by the governing body of a profession
- progressive cavity pump — A progressive cavity pump is a pump with an electric motor that rotates rods to make fluid in cavities move upward.
- provocative maintenance — [Common ironic mutation of "preventive maintenance"] Actions performed upon a machine at regularly scheduled intervals to ensure that the system remains in a usable state. So called because it is all too often performed by a field servoid who doesn't know what he is doing; such "maintenance" often *induces* problems, or otherwise results in the machine's remaining in an *un*usable state for an indeterminate amount of time. See also scratch monkey.
- psychomotor retardation — a generalized slowing of psychological and physical activity, frequently occurring as a symptom of severe depression.
- publicly-quoted company — a company whose shares are traded on a stock exchange
- puerto rican royal palm — a feather palm, Roystonea borinquena, of Puerto Rico and St. Croix, having leaves about 10 feet (3 meters) long and egg-shaped, yellowish-brown fruit.
- real simple syndication — (spelling) Illiterate form of Really Simple Syndication.
- relative sunspot number — a number indicating the degree of sunspot activity on the sun as a factor of observer idiosyncrasies, the number of sunspot groups, and the number of individual sunspots.
- rocky mountain beeplant — a rank-smelling plant, Cleome serrulata, of the caper family, native to the western U.S., having showy, dense clusters of pink or white flowers, frequented by bees.
- silicone breast implant — silicone filled bags that are implanted into a woman in order to increase the size of her breasts
- social democratic party — History/Historical. a political party in Germany advocating a form of social organization based on the economic and political ideology of Karl Marx.
- social security payment — a payment of social security made to an individual
- sodium tripolyphosphate — a white powder, Na 5 P 3 O 1 0 , used as a water softener, sequestering agent, and food additive.
- somaliland protectorate — official name of the former British Somaliland.
- specialite de la maison — the specialty of the house (used in referring to the most important dish served by a restaurant).
- st. pierre and miquelon — two small groups of islands off the S coast of Newfoundland: an overseas territory of France; important base for fishing. 3 sq. mi. (240 sq. km). Capital: St. Pierre.