the virtual-memory thrashing that occurs by trying to keep millions of words “in memory” at the same time.

Do you actually read the posts you reply to, or just divine their content through your lower lumbar regions? Because that's what you are talking out of right now.

He isn't storing millions of words “in memory”. He clearly states that his dictionary contains 100,000 words. Mine contains 178,000 words:

@words = do{ local( @ARGV, $/) = 'words.txt'; <> };;

print scalar @words;;
178691

undef @words{ @words };;
print total_size( \%words );;
14 224 469 ## Spaces added for clarity!
[download]

Mine occupies just 14MB (his less than 10MB). My 3 yr old decidedly unsmart £30 cellphone has 10 times that amount. In case that hasn't sunk in, let me make this clear:

None of the millions of words from the huge file is ever stored in the hash!

They are read from the file a line at a time, split into a list of words, looked up in the hash (NOT STORED), and then discarded.

So will you please, please, please stop trotting out your "virtual memory is disk" missive at every inopportune moment. Read what you are responding to. (Follow your own advice: read it twice, and then once more). Think about it for a while. AND THEN SHUT THE F*** UP. Because it is getting boring trying to keep correcting you over and over and over.

You remind me for all the world of my dear ol' Nan. Loved her to bits, but towards then end she was getting a little bit fixated.

How are you Nan?

During the war we had to make ends meet, so we stained our legs with used coffee grounds, and drew lines on the back of our legs with eye-liner, so we didn't have to buy stocking.

No, no, no. Nan. Nan. Sit down Nan, you need your rest. You don't need to demonstrate. Really no. We believe you.

So, how did you get on at the doctors Nan?

During the war we ....