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 Talk Talk - Communication terms
Category: General technical and industrial
Date & country: 28/05/2010, UK
Words: 18630


cayenne pepper
Spice produced from the dried fruits of several species of capsicum (especially Capsicum frutescens), a tropical American group of plants. Its origins are completely different from black or white pepper, which comes from an East Indian plant (Piper nigrum)

calceolaria
Plant with brilliantly coloured slipper-shaped flowers. Native to South America, calceolarias were introduced to Europe and the USA in the 1830s. (Genus Calceolaria, family Scrophulariaceae.)

candela
SI unit of luminous intensity, which replaced the former units of candle and standard candle. It measures the brightness of a light itself rather than the amount of light falling on an object, which is called illuminance and measured in lux. One candela is defined as the luminous intensity in a given direction of a source that emits monochromatic r...

car
Click images to enlargeSmall, driver-guided, passenger-carrying motor vehicle; originally the automated version of the horse-drawn carriage, meant to convey people and their goods over streets and roads. Most are four-wheeled and have water-cooled, piston-type internal-combustion engines fu...

Carter, Angela
English writer of the magic realist school. Her works are marked by elements of Gothic fantasy, a fascination with the erotic and the violent, tempered by a complex lyricism and a comic touch. Her novels include The Magic Toyshop (1967) (filmed in 1987) and Nights at the Circus (1984). She co-wrote the scri...

carob
Small Mediterranean tree belonging to the legume family. Its pods, 20 cm/8 in long, are used as an animal feed; they are also the source of a chocolate substitute. (Ceratonia siliqua, family Leguminosae.)

Cameroon
Country in west Africa, bounded northwest by Nigeria, northeast by Chad, east by the Central African Republic, south by the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea, and west by the Atlantic. Government Cameroon was a federal state until 1972 when a new constitution, last revised in 1996, made it unitary. It has a single-chamber legi...

Canada
Click images to enlargeCountry occupying the northern part of the North American continent, bounded to the south by the USA, north by the Arctic Ocean, northwest by Alaska, east by the Atlantic Ocean, and west by the Pacific Ocean. Government The Canada Act of 1982 gave Canada power to amend its constitution and added a c...

Cape Verde
Country formed by a group of islands in the Atlantic, west of Senegal (West Africa). Government Cape Verde's 1992 constitution provides for a multiparty political system – although religious and geographically based parties are prohibited – with a 72-member national people's assembly and a president, both directly elected and ...

Cappadocia
Ancient region of Asia Minor, in eastern central Turkey. It was conquered by the Persians in 584 BC but in the 3rd century BC became an independent kingdom. The region was annexed as a province of the Roman empire in AD 17. The area includes over 600 Byzantine cave churches cut into volcanic rock, da...

Cambodia
Country in southeast Asia, bounded north and northwest by Thailand, north by Laos, east and southeast by Vietnam, and southwest by the Gulf of Thailand. Government Under the 1993 constitution, which provided for a constitutional monarch with limited powers, the king is said to `reign but not rul...

Canadian art
Both French and English tradition contributed to development of art in Canada from the 17th century onwards. In the colony of New France, c. 1670, Frère Luc (Claude François) transplanted the European style of religious painting. After the British conquest in 1759, contact with Europe is reflected in the work of Fran...

Canadian literature
Canadian literature in English began early in the 19th century in the Maritime Provinces with the humorous tales of T C Haliburton (1796–1865). Charles Heavysege (1816–1876) published poems combining psychological insight with Puritan values. The late 19th century brought the lyrical output of Charles G D Roberts, Bliss Carman (1861–...

carbolic acid
Common name for the aromatic compound phenol

cartography
Art and practice of drawing maps, originally with pens and drawing boards, but now mostly with computer-aided drafting programs

calorific value
Amount of heat generated by a given mass of fuel when it is completely burned. It is measured in joules per kilogram. Calorific values are measured experimentally with a bomb calorimeter

cardinal number
In mathematics, one of the series of numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... . Cardinal numbers relate to quantity, whereas ordinal numbers (first, second, third, fourth, ... ) relate to order

Calvados
(beverage) French brandy distilled from apple cider, named after the département of Calvados in the Basse-Normandie region of northwest France where it is produced

Canning, Charles John
British administrator, son of George Canning and first viceroy of India from 1858. As governor general of India from 1856, he suppressed the Indian Mutiny with a fair but firm hand which earned him the nickname `Clemency Canning`. Viscount (1837), Earl (1859)

canning
Food preservation in hermetically sealed containers by the application of heat. Originated by Nicolas Appert in France in 1809 with glass containers, it was developed by Peter Durand in England in 1810 with cans made of sheet steel thinly coated with tin to delay corrosion. Cans for beer and soft drinks are now generally made of aluminium. Cannerie...

cash crop
Crop grown solely for sale rather than for the farmer's own use, for example, coffee, cotton, or sugar beet. Many developing world countries grow cash crops to meet their debt repayments rather than grow food for their own people. In 1990 Uganda, Rwanda, Nicaragua, and Somalia were the countries ...

caviar
Salted roe (eggs) of sturgeon, salmon, and other fishes. Caviar is prepared by beating and straining the egg sacs until the eggs are free from fats and then adding salt. Russia and Iran are the main exporters of the most prized variety of caviar, derived from Caspian Sea sturgeon. Iceland produces various high-quality, lower-priced caviars....

Castries
Capital and port of St Lucia, on the northwest coast of the island; population (2001 est) 59,600. From its almost enclosed harbour, it exports sugar cane, bananas, limes, coconuts, cacao, and rum. The town processes foodstuffs and drinks, and manufacturing industries include tobacco, textiles, wood, rubber and metal products, chemicals, and pri...

CAP
Abbreviation for Common Agricultural Policy

caber, tossing the
Scottish athletic sport, a Highland Games event. The caber (a tapered tree trunk about 6 m/20 ft long, weighing up to about 100 kg/220 lb) is held in the palms of the cupped hands and rests on the shoulder. The thrower runs forward and tosses the caber, rotating it through 180 degrees so that it lands on its opposite end and falls forward. ...

Campbell, Malcolm
British racing driver who once held both land- and water-speed records. He set the land-speed record nine times, pushing it up to 484.8 kph/301.1 mph at Bonneville Flats, Utah, USA, in 1935, and broke the water-speed record three times, the best being 228.2 kph/141.74 mph on Coniston Water, England, in 1939. His car and boat...

catch crop
Crop that is inserted between two principal crops in a rotation in order to provide some quick livestock feed or soil improvement at a time when the land would otherwise be lying idle. For example, in the gap between harvesting a crop of winter-sown wheat and sowing a spring variety of barley, an additional catch crop of turnips or ryegrass can...

catheter
Fine tube inserted into the body to introduce or remove fluids. The urinary catheter, passed by way of the urethra (the duct that leads urine away from the bladder) was the first to be used. In today's practice, catheters can be inserted into blood vessels, either in the limbs or trunk, to provide blood samples and local pressure measurements, ...

caries
Decay and disintegration, usually of the substance of teeth (cavity) or bone, caused by acids produced when the bacteria that live in the mouth break down sugars in the food. Fluoride, a low sugar intake, and regular brushing are all protective. Caries form mainly in the 45 minutes following consumption of sugary food

catabolism
In biology, the destructive part of metabolism where living tissue is changed into energy and waste products. It is the opposite of anabolism. It occurs continuously in the body, but is accelerated during many disease processes, such as fever, and in starvation

cashmere
Natural fibre originating from the wool of the goats of Kashmir, India, used for shawls, scarves, sweaters, and coats. It can also be made artificially

Canute VI
King of Denmark from 1182, son and successor of Waldemar Knudsson. With his brother and successor, Waldemar II, he resisted Frederick I's northward expansion, and established Denmark as the dominant power in the Baltic

cantor
In Judaism and Roman Catholicism, the prayer leader and choirmaster, responsible for singing solo parts of the chant. The position can be held by any lay person. In Protestant churches, the music director is known as the cantor. The Jewish cantor, or chazan, who leads the singing in synagogue has had a training not only in music and voice work, but...

care order
In Britain, a court order that places a child in the care of a local authority. Surveys show that 75% of those who have been in care leave school with no qualifications. They are less likely to find employment and more likely to go to prison, and one in three was homeless in 1993. There were 63,000 children in care in the UK in 1993

carte blanche
No instructions, complete freedom to do as one wishes

Catherine of Alexandria, St
Christian martyr. According to legend she disputed with 50 scholars, refusing to give up her faith and marry Emperor Maxentius. Her emblem is a wheel, on which her persecutors tried to kill her (the wheel broke and she was beheaded). Her feast day is 25 November; removed from the church calendar in 1969

Campin, Robert
Early Netherlandish painter, active in Tournai from 1406. The few works attributed to him are almost as revolutionary in their naturalism as the van Eyck brothers' Ghent altarpiece, which they may antedate, and he ranks as one of the founders of the Netherlandish School. Campin's outstanding work is the Mérode Altarpiece
causality
In philosophy, a consideration of the connection between cause and effect, usually referred to as the `causal relationship`. If an event is assumed to have a cause, two important questions arise: what is the relationship between cause and effect, and must it follow that every event is caused? The Scottish philosopher David Hume consid...

Cavaco Silva, Anibal
Portuguese politician, prime minister and Social Democratic Party (PSD) leader 1985–95, and president from 2006. Under his leadership Portugal joined the European Community in 1985 and the Western European Union in 1988, and there was economic expansion, stimulated.by tax cuts and deregulation. Born in the Algarve region, Cavaco Silva studied ...

Carey, Peter Philip
Australian novelist. Noted for his imaginative use of magic realism, he won the Booker Prize for his novels Oscar and Lucinda (1988, filmed 1997) and True History of the Kelly Gang (2001). His other works include Bliss (1981, filmed 1985), Illywhacker (1985), Jack ...

cable television
Distribution of broadcast signals through cable relay systems. Narrow-band systems were originally used to deliver services to areas with poor regular reception; systems with wider bands, using coaxial and fibreoptic cable, are increasingly used for distribution and development of home-based telephone and television services

capital bond
In economics, an investment bond that is purchased by a single payment, set up for a fixed period, and offered for sale by financial institutions. The emphasis is on capital growth of the lump sum invested rather than on income

Carnarvon
Alternative spelling of Caernarfon, a town in Wales

Cannon, Annie Jump
US astronomer. She carried out revolutionary work on the classification of stars by examining their spectra. Her system, still used today, has spectra arranged according to temperature into categories labelled O, B, A, F, G, K, M, R, N, and S. O-type stars are the hottest, with surface temperatures ranging from 25,000 to 50,000 K (from 24,700&#...

Castagno, Andrea del
Italian Renaissance painter, active in Florence. His work, which develops from that of Masaccio, is powerful and sculptural in effect, showing clear outlines and an interest in foreshortening. His David (c. 1450–57; National Gallery, Washington, DC) is typical

Cagney, James
(Francis, Jr) US actor. His physical dynamism and staccato vocal delivery made him one of the first stars of talking pictures. Often associated with gangster roles, as in The Public Enemy (1931) and White Heat (1949), he was equally adept at playing comedy...

capillarity
Spontaneous movement of liquids up or down narrow tubes, or capillaries. The movement is due to unbalanced molecular attraction at the boundary between the liquid and the tube. If liquid molecules near the boundary are more strongly attracted to molecules in the material of the tube than to other nearby liquid molecules, the liquid will rise in the...

cable
Unit of length, used on ships, originally the length of a ship's anchor cable or 120 fathoms (219 m/720 ft), but now taken as one-tenth of a nautical mile (185.3 m/608 ft)

Carson, Willie
Scottish jockey who rode 17 English classic winners including four Epsom Derby winners, and was the champion flat-racing jockey in 1972, 1973, 1978, 1980, and 1983. He retired in 1997 with a career total of 3,828 winners. Career highlights Champion jockey 1972–73, 1978, 1980, 1983 Oaks 1977, 1980, 1983, 1990 St Leger 1977, 1983, 1988 1,000...

carcinogen
Any agent that increases the chance of a cell becoming cancerous (see cancer), including various chemical compounds, some viruses, X-rays, and other forms of ionizing radiation. The term is often used more narrowly to mean chemical carcinogens only

carcinoma
Malignant tumour arising from the skin, the glandular tissues, or the mucous membranes that line the gut and lungs

cap
(contraceptive) Another name for a diaphragm contraceptive

calcium hydroxide
White solid, slightly soluble in water. A solution of calcium hydroxide is called limewater and is used in the laboratory to test for the presence of carbon dioxide. It is manufactured industrially by adding water to calcium oxide (quicklime) in a strongly exothermic reaction: CaO + H2O ® Ca(OH)2
cacao
Tropical American evergreen tree, now also cultivated in West Africa and Sri Lanka. Its seeds are cocoa beans, from which cocoa and chocolate are prepared. (Theobroma cacao, family Sterculiaceae.) The trees mature at five to eight years and produce two crops a year. The fruit is 17–25 cm/6.5–9.5 in long, hard, and r...

Cavendish, Spencer
British politician; see Spencer Compton Cavendish Hartington

catalytic converter
Device fitted to the exhaust system of a motor vehicle in order to reduce toxic emissions from the engine. It converts the harmful exhaust products that cause air pollution to relatively harmless ones. It does this by passing them over a mixture of catalysts coated on a metal or ceramic honeycomb (a ...

Cauvery
Sacred Hindu river of southern India, rising in the Western Ghats and flowing 765 km/475 mi southeast through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to meet the Bay of Bengal in a wide delta. It has been a major source of hydroelectric power since 1902 when India's first hydropower plant was built on the river. In the 1920s the river was dammed at Mettur...

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Nonparty-political British organization advocating the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide. Since its foundation in 1958, CND has sought unilateral British initiatives to help start, and subsequently to accelerate, the multilateral process and end the arms race. The movement was launched by th...

cartel
Agreement among national or international firms not to compete with one another. Cartels can be formed to fix prices by maintaining the price of a product at an artificially low level, to deter new competitors, or to restrict production of a commodity in order to maintain prices at an artificially high level to boost profits. The members of a carte...

Calder, Alexander
(Stirling) US abstract sculptor. He invented mobiles, sculptures consisting of flat, brightly coloured shapes, suspended from wires and rods and moved by motors or currents of air. Although he was not the first sculptor to exploit real movement, no one before him had used it consistently. Huge...

capacitance, electrical
Property of a capacitor that determines how much charge can be stored in it for a given potential difference between its terminals. It is equal to the ratio of the electrical charge stored to the potential difference. The SI unit of capacitance is the farad, but most capacitors have much smaller capacitances, and the microfarad (a millionth of a fa...

caiman
Large reptile, related to the alligator. All caimans are found only in Central and South America. Types of caiman The black caiman Melanosuchus niger is the largest South American predator, reaching 6 m in length. Cuvier's dwarf caiman Paleosuchus palpebrosus may be as little as 1.2 m in length when fully g...

carbon dioxide
Colourless, odourless gas, slightly soluble in water, and denser than air. It is formed by the complete oxidation of carbon. Carbon dioxide is produced by living things during the processes of respiration and the decomposition of organic matter, and it is used up during photosynthesis. It therefore plays a vital role in the carbon cycle. Solid carb...

California
Click images to enlargeWestern state of the USA, bordered to the south by the Mexican state of Baja California, to the east by Arizona and Nevada, to the north by Oregon, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean; area 403,932 sq km/155,959 sq mi; population (2006 est) 36,457,500; capital Sacramento. Its nickna...

Caribbean Sea
Click images to enlargeWestern part of the Atlantic Ocean between Cuba to the north and the northern coasts of South America to the south. Central America is to the west and to the east are the West Indies. The sea is about 2,740 km/1,700 mi long and 650–1,500 km/400–900 mi wide; area 2,640,000 sq km...

Carson City
Capital of Nevada, situated at an altitude of 1,425 m/4,674 ft near the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada, 48 km/30 mi south of Reno, and to the east of Lake Tahoe; population (2000 est) 52,500. The mainstays of the economy are tourism and legalized gambling, although mining and livestock raising are still important. From 1861 it w...

cathode-ray oscilloscope
Instrument used to measure electrical potentials or voltages that vary over time and to display the waveforms of electrical oscillations or signals. Readings are displayed graphically on the screen of a cathode-ray tube. The CRO is used as a voltmeter with any voltage change shown on screen by an...

cathode ray
Stream of fast-moving electrons that travel from a cathode (negative electrode) towards an anode (positive electrode) in a vacuum tube. They carry a negative charge and can be deflected by electric and magnetic fields. Cathode rays focused into fine beams of fast electrons are used in cathode-ray tubes, the electrons' kinetic energy bei...

calcium carbonate
White solid, found in nature as limestone, marble, and chalk. It is a valuable resource, used in the making of iron, steel, cement, glass, slaked lime, bleaching powder, sodium carbonate and bicarbonate, and many other industrially useful substances

cadence
In music, two chords that are specially chosen and arranged to give a logical end to a musical phrase or section. Music, like language, has a form of punctuation – with full stops, semicolons, and commas. This `musical punctuation` is found at the end of phrases, which are natural resting points in music, and is called a cadence. Cad...

cathode
(electronics) In electronics, the part of an electronic device in which electrons are generated. In a thermionic valve, electrons are produced by the heating effect of an applied current; in a photocell, they are produced by the interaction of light and a semiconducting material. The catho...

cash flow
Input of cash required to cover all expenses of a business, whether revenue or capital. Alternatively, the actual or prospective balance between the various outgoing and incoming movements which are designated in total. Cash flow is positive if receipts are greater than payments; or negative if payments are greater than receipts. Money may be r...

Cassini-Huygens
Click images to enlargeSpace probe developed jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency to explore the planet Saturn. Cassini was launched on 15 October 1997 to study the planet's atmosphere, rings, and moons, and to drop off a sub-probe, Huygens, to land on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The mission passed ...

carboxylic acid
Organic acid containing the carboxyl group (COOH) attached to another group (R), which can be hydrogen (giving methanoic acid, HCOOH) or a larger group. When R is a straight-chain alkyl group (such as CH3 or CH3CH2), the acid is known as a fatty acid. Examples of carboxylic ac...

caution
Legal term for a warning given by police questioning a suspect, which in the UK must be couched in the following terms: `You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence.` Persons not under arrest must also be told that they do not have to remain at the police station or with the poli...

Cannes Film Festival
International film festival held every year in Cannes, France. The first festival was held in 1946. The main award is the Palme d'Or (known as the Grand Prix until 1955) for best film. Other awards are made for direction, best screenplay, female performance, and male performance, and there are additional awards, including the Grand Jury Prize, ...

carambola
Small evergreen tree of Southeast Asia. The fruits, called star fruit, are yellowish, about 12 cm/4 in long, with a five-pointed star-shaped cross-section. They can be eaten raw, cooked, or pickled, and are juicily acidic. The juice is also used to remove stains from hands and clothes. (Averrhoa carambola, family ...

carbonation
In earth science, a form of chemical weathering caused by rainwater that has absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and formed a weak carbonic acid. The slightly acidic rainwater is then capable of dissolving certain minerals in rocks. Water can also pick up acids when it passes through soil. This water – enriched with organic acid –...

cavitation
(earth science) In hydraulics, erosion of rocks caused by the forcing of air into cracks. Cavitation results from the pounding of waves on the coast and the swirling of turbulent river currents, and exerts great pressure, eventually causing rocks to break apart. The process is particularly com...

cache memory
In computing, a reserved area of the immediate access memory used to increase the running speed of a computer program. The cache memory may be constructed from SRAM, which is faster but more expensive than the normal DRAM. Most programs access the same instructions or data repeatedly. If these frequently used instructions and data are stored in a f...

Carey, George Leonard
103rd archbishop of Canterbury 1991–2002. A product of a liberal evangelical background, he was appointed bishop of Bath and Wells in 1987. His support of the ordination of women priests brought disagreement during his first meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1992

capital
(economics) In economics, the stock of goods used in the production of other goods. Classical economics regards capital as a factor of production, distinguishing between financial capital and physical capital. Financial capital is accumulated or inherited wealth held in the form of assets, suc...

camcorder
Another name for a video camera

caesura
In poetry, a natural pause in a line of verse

capital letter
Upper-case letter; see case, upper and lower

case, upper and lower
The two possible forms taken by letters of the alphabet: capitals (upper case) and lower case. Capitals are used to begin proper nouns (John, Concorde, Dr Smith); the beginning of a sentence; the beginning of a sentence of direct speech (He said: `Come here!`); and the principal words in a title (Far from ...

case
In grammar, the different forms (inflections) taken by nouns, pronouns, and adjectives depending on their function in a sentence. English is a language with four inflections; most words have no more than two forms. For example, six pronouns have one form when they are the subject of the verb, and a different form when they are either objects of...

Carnot,
(Nicolas Léonard) French scientist and military engineer who founded the science of thermodynamics. His pioneering work was Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu/On the Motive Power of Fire, which considered the changes that would take place in an idealized, fr...

cabaret
Theatrical revue traditionally combining satire and song and performed in cafés or bars. Originating in Paris in the late 19th century in venues such as the Moulin Rouge, cabaret was embraced by avant-garde writers and artists. In Germany, Berlin became a centre for an increasingly political cabaret in the 1920s, which was later suppressed...

Canary Wharf
Click images to enlarge420,000-sq m/4.5 million-sq ft office development on the Isle of Dogs in London's Docklands, the first phase of which was completed in 1992, along with the foundations for a further 740,000 sq m/8 million sq ft. The complex of offices, surrounding landscaped squares, is best know...

canvas
Plain cloth woven from tough durable cotton or linen yarn, used as a support for paintings, as well as baggage, tents, beach shoes, and other utilitarian purposes. Artist's canvas is one of the most popular working surfaces for artists, as it is lighter and more portable than wood, and lasts longer than paper. The canvas is attached to a stretc...

Carolingian art
The art of the reign of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor (800–814), and his descendants until about 900. In line with his revival of learning and Roman culture, Charlemagne greatly encouraged the arts, which had been in eclipse. Illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, and small-scale sculpture survive from this period. See also mediev...

Campbell, Colen
Scottish architect. He was one of the principal figures in British Palladian architecture. His widely influential book Vitruvius Britannicus was published in 1712. Among his best-known works are Burlington House, London (1718–19); Mereworth Castle, Kent (1722–25); and Houghton Hall, Norfolk (1722–26). H...

Campion, Jane
New Zealand film director and screenwriter. She made her feature debut with Sweetie (1989), a dark tale of family dysfunction, then went on to make An Angel at My Table (1990), based on the autobiography of the writer Janet Frame, originally shown as a television miniseries. The Piano (1993),...

cane toad
Toad of the genus Bufo marinus, family Bufonidae. Also known as the giant or marine toad, the cane toad is the largest in the world. It acquired its name after being introduced to Australia from South America in 1935 to eradicate the cane beetle, which had become a serious pest there. However, having few natural enemies, the cane...

Caledonia
Roman term for the Scottish Highlands, inhabited by the Caledoni. The tribes of the area remained outside Roman control – they were defeated but not conquered by Agricola in AD 83 to 84 and again by Septimius Severus who reached beyond modern Aberdeen in 208. Since the 18th century, the name has been revived as a romantic alternative for the w...

Catalonia
Alternative spelling for Cataluña

Caerphilly
(authority) Unitary authority in south Wales, created in 1996 from parts of the former counties of Mid Glamorgan and Gwent. Area 270 sq km/104 sq mi Towns Hengoed (administrative headquarters), Caerphilly, Bargoed, Newbridge, Rhym...

carpet beetle
Small black or brown beetle. The larvae are covered with hairs and often known as woolly bears; they feed on carpets, fabrics, and hides causing damage. The common carpet beetle Anthrenus scrophularia measures 3–4 mm/0.1–0.2 in long. It is oval, black, and has yellow scales on the shield (pronotum) and ginger re...

Campbell-Bannerman, Henry
British Liberal politician, prime minister 1905–08, leader of the Liberal party 1898–1908. The Entente Cordiale was broadened to embrace Russia during his premiership, which also saw the granting of `responsible government` to the Boer republics in southern Africa. He was succeeded as prime minister and Liberal leader by H H Asq...