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18-letter words containing w, h, s

  • lesser whitethroat — an Old World warbler, Sylvia curruca, having a greyish-brown plumage with a white throat and underparts
  • 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".
  • make short work of — exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.
  • make sth one's own — If you make something your own, you become involved in it in such a way that people think of it as being related only to you or belonging only to you, rather than to anyone else.
  • microsloth windows — (abuse, operating system)   /mi:'kroh-sloth" win"dohz/ (Or "Windoze", /win'dohz/) A derogatory term for Microsoft Windows which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with mess-dos that it is agonisingly slow on anything less than a fast 486. Also called just "Windoze", with the implication that you can fall asleep waiting for it to do anything; the latter term is extremely common on Usenet. Compare X, sun-stools.
  • moscow art theater — a Russian theatrical company founded in 1898 principally by Konstantin Stanislavski and famous for its naturalistic acting.
  • multiple ownership — ownership by several people or organizations
  • negative cash flow — the situation when income is less than payments
  • none the worse for — not harmed by (adverse events or circumstances)
  • north saskatchewan — a river in S central Canada, flowing E from the Rocky Mountains and joining the South Saskatchewan River to form the Saskatchewan River. 760 miles (1223 km) long.
  • northwest by north — a point on the compass, 11°15′ north of northwest. Abbreviation: NWbN.
  • packet switch node — (PSN) A dedicated computer whose purpose is to accept, route and forward packets in a packet-switched network.
  • peter tschaikowsky — Peter Ilyich [il-yich] /ˈɪl yɪtʃ/ (Show IPA), Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich.
  • prerelease showing — a showing of a film before it goes on general release
  • przewalski's horse — a wild horse, Equus caballus przevalskii, chiefly of Mongolia and Sinkiang, characterized by light yellow coloring and a stiff, upright black mane with no forelock: the only remaining breed of wild horse, it is now endangered and chiefly maintained in zoos.
  • rhode island white — one of a dual-purpose American breed of chickens having white feathers and a rose comb.
  • right-to-work laws — a state law making it illegal to refuse employment to a person for the sole reason that he or she is not a union member.
  • rosebay willowherb — a perennial onagraceous plant, Chamerion (formerly Epilobium) angustifolium, that has spikes of deep pink flowers and is widespread in open places throughout N temperate regions
  • rub shoulders with — to mix with socially or associate with
  • salem witch trials — 17th-century witchcraft case
  • saskatchewan party — (in Canada) a Saskatchewan political party formed by former members of the provincial Progressive Conservative and Liberal Parties
  • schleswig-holstein — two contiguous duchies of Denmark that were a center of international tension in the 19th century: Prussia annexed Schleswig 1864 and Holstein 1866.
  • schwarz inequality — Also called Cauchy's inequality. the theorem that the inner product of two vectors is less than or equal to the product of the magnitudes of the vectors.
  • sharp-shinned hawk — a North American hawk, Accipiter striatus, having extremely slender legs, a bluish-gray back, and a white, rusty-barred breast.
  • sheltered workshop — a place of employment for persons with disabilities where their rights are protected and their needs are met.
  • short story writer — author of short fiction
  • short-tailed shrew — a grayish-black shrew, Blarina brevicauda, common in eastern North America, that has a tail less than half the length of the body.
  • slow on the uptake — slow to understand or learn
  • song without words — a song which only consists of a tune or melody and does not have any lyrics
  • south saskatchewan — a river in W Canada, flowing E from S Alberta and joining the North Saskatchewan River to form the Saskatchewan River. 865 miles (1392 km) long.
  • southwest by south — a point on the compass 11°15′ south of southwest. Abbreviation: SWbS.
  • sow dragon's teeth — to take some action that is intended to prevent strife or trouble but that actually brings it about
  • spike-tooth harrow — a harrow equipped with straight teeth on horizontal bars, usually employed to smooth and level plowed soil or seedbeds for planting or sowing.
  • stomach sweetbread — sweetbread (def 1).
  • submarine sandwich — a sandwich made with a long cylindrical bread roll
  • super middleweight — a boxer weighing up to 168 pounds (75.6 kg), between middleweight and light heavyweight.
  • swedish gymnastics — a system of passive and active exercising of muscles and joints
  • swim with the tide — to conform to prevailing opinion
  • swollen-headedness — the quality of being conceited
  • take the wraps off — to reveal
  • talk between ships — TBS (def 1).
  • the bird has flown — the person in question has fled or escaped
  • the cat's whiskers — a person or thing that is excellent or superior
  • the powers that be — You can refer to people in authority as the powers that be, especially when you want to say that you disagree with them or do not understand what they say or do.
  • the three wise men — the wise men from the east who came to do homage to the infant Jesus
  • the welsh assembly — the elected assembly for Wales, based in Cardiff, that has certain powers devolved from the UK government
  • the worse for wear — If you say that someone is the worse for wear, you mean that they are tired, ill, or in a bad state because they have been very active, been through a difficult experience, or been drinking alcohol.
  • throw oneself into — to propel or cast in any way, especially to project or propel from the hand by a sudden forward motion or straightening of the arm and wrist: to throw a ball.
  • to get wind of sth — If you get wind of something, you hear about it, especially when someone else did not want you to know about it.
  • to sweep the board — If someone sweeps the board in a competition or election, they win nearly everything that it is possible to win.
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