>I keep seeing references to API. I've tried:
> Almost Perfect Information
> Assembly Programmer's Inspiration
> Assiduously Preening Intellectuals
> Above Programmer's Intelligence
>
>So what is it really? (Hey, I told you I was ignorant.)

Application Programming Interface.

It's what us Mac-heads used to call a "Toolbox manager": a suite of 
function calls and data structures providing access to some service. The 
term is more general, referring to both the Mac Toolbox as well as other 
interfaces like Photoshop plugins.

-Mars