Crossword-Solution: BACKUS 6 letters, 6 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 14

VHLL stands for `Very-High-Level Language' and is used to describe a {bondage-and-discipline language} that the speaker happens to like; Prolog and Backus's FP are often called VHLLs.

John Backus, I guessed, from his clothes and his looks, that he was a grazier or farmer from the backwoods of some western State--doubtless Ohio--and afterward when he dropped into his personal history and I discovered that he _was _a cattle-raiser from interior Ohio, I was so pleased with my own penetration that I warmed toward him for verifying my instinct.

Wouldn't their eyes bug out, to see 'em handled like that?--wouldn't they, though?' All the passengers were on deck to look--even the gamblers--and Backus knew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet topic.

However, as they passed me presently, I heard Backus say, with a tone of persecuted annoyance-- 'But it ain't any use, gentlemen; I tell you again, as I've told you a half a dozen times before, I warn't raised to it, and I ain't a-going to resk it.' I felt relieved.

During the fortnight's run from Acapulco to San Francisco I several times saw the gamblers talking earnestly with Backus, and once I threw out a gentle warning to him.