Map O’ The Day #24 – Turkey Trail

So, it’s not quite Thanksgiving, but I thought I’d send this out in the spirit of the oncoming holiday.

This map is a lifecycle of a turkey, well at least of a domesticated turkey. I think the imagery is very strong, and for some folks serves as a reminder of why they are vegetarians! It’s interesting that the illustrator has used such childlike design to represent the systematic slaughter and consumption of a quite tasty creature!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Map O’ The Day #23 – Pop vs. Soda

It’s definitely called POP!!!!

When on a hot summer’s day you buy a carbonated beverage to quench your thirst, how do you order it? Do you ask for a soda, a pop or something else? That question lay at the basis of an article in the Journal of English Linguistics (Soda or Pop?, #24, 1996) and of a map, showing the regional variation in American English of the names given to that type of drink.

The article was written by Luanne von Schneidemesser, PhD in German linguistics and philology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and senior editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English. And although there might be weightier issues in life (or even in linguistics) than the preferred terminology for a can of soft drink, there’s nothing trivial about this part of the beverage industry.

“According to an article last year in the Isthmus, Madison’s weekly newspaper, Americans drink so much of the carbonated beverages sold under such brand names as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sprite, Mountain Dew, and 7-Up that consumption averages 43 gallons per year for every man, woman, and child in the United States,” Von Schneidemesser begins her article. “The Statistical Abstract of the United States (1994) confirms this: 44.1 gallons per person in 1992, compared to the next most consumed beverages: beer (32.7 gallons), coffee (27.8 gallons), and milk (25.3 gallons).”

Coke: this generic term for soft drinks predominates throughout the South, New Mexico, central Indiana and in a few other single counties in Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. ‘Coke’ obviously derives from Coca-Cola, the brand-name of the soft drink originally manufactured in Atlanta (which explains its use as a generic term for all soft drinks in the South).

Pop: dominates the Northwest, Great Plains and Midwest. The world ‘pop’ was introduced by Robert Southey, the British Poet Laureate (1774-1843), to whom we also owe the word ‘autobiography’, among others. In 1812, he wrote: A new manufactory of a nectar, between soda-water and ginger-beer, and called pop, because ‘pop goes the cork’ when it is drawn. Even though it was introduced by a Poet Laureate, the term ‘pop’ is considered unsophisticated by some, because it is onomatopoeic.

Soda: prevalent in the Northeast, greater Miami, the area in Missouri and Illinois surrounding St Louis and parts of northern California. ‘Soda’ derives from ‘soda-water’ (also called club soda, carbonated or sparkling water or seltzer). It’s produced by dissolving carbon dioxide gas in plain water, a procedure developed by Joseph Priestly in the latter half of the 18th century. The fizziness of soda-water caused the term ‘soda’ to be associated with later, similarly carbonated soft drinks.

Other, lesser-used terms: include ‘dope’ in the Carolinas and ‘tonic’ in and around Boston, both fading in popularity. Other generic terms for soft drinks outside the US include ‘pop’ (Canada), ‘mineral’ (Ireland), ‘soft drink’ (New Zealand and Australia). The term ‘soft drink’, finally, arose to contrast said beverages with hard (i.e. alcoholic) drinks.

Map O' The Day #22 - Economist Pizza Box

The Economist "Get A World View" pizza boxes: Using pizza boxes as a method for delivering more than just a pizza pie, British news magazine The Economist topped pizza boxes with pie charts showing stats relating to world food distribution, such as world cheese imports and global wheat consumption. Distributed through 20 Philly-area pizza shops with close proximity to universities, the charts aimed to inform students about how their consumption affects the rest of the world and also to show that The Economist's content is not only educational but also relevant to their lifestyle. Now that's food for thought!

Map O’ The Day #22 – Japanese View of America

This map is basically what would happen if you got a bunch of Japanese guys in a room, got them drunk, and then asked them to draw what they could remember about America on a bar napkin.

Some funny things of note:

• Alaska is an island, including the fictional city of Ice Palace.
• Montana is located oceanside, under Seattle, which apparently has a thing with cats.
• Portland and Lake Tahoe are near the supersized San Francisco Bay, which contains an equally inflated Alcatraz.
• San Fran itself is placed on the wrong side of its bay.
• Los Angeles (under the sign still reading ‘Hollywoodland’) is just north of Arizona; close by are the cities of Las Vegas, Tombstone, Phoenix and Carlsbad Caverns.
• So great they named it twice: another Carlsbad Caverns appears near El Paso, which is separated from Houston by a large bay, near which can also be found the (Mexican) cities of Oaxaca and Mexico City.
• The north (labeled ‘Minnesota’) is dominated by St Paul, Minneapolis, Yellowstone and Chicago, which boasts an enormous skyscraper (probably but not recognizably the Sears Tower).
• The northwestern peninsula of America is called Michigan, and counts two major cities: Detroit and Indianapolis.
• New Jersey apparently is a hole in the ground, while New York is located on an island way off the mainland.
• New Orleans is placed about right, Atlanta is too far south (and south of Florida).
• The centre of the country is dominated by the gigantic monument of Mount Rushmore, not far from the town of Missouri. To the south, apparently surrounded by desert, is the city of Dallas.
• Oh yes, and there is no Canada! Makes one wonder where that waterfall on America’s northeastern peninsula comes from.

Map O’ The Day #20 – Gnomes of Europe

In 1976, Dutch illustrator Rien Poortvliet and writer Wil Huygen published ‘Gnomes’, a quasi-scientific work about the history, anatomy, habits, quirks and other aspects of the lives of these little people. The book, supposedly written with the consent and cooperation of the gnomes, was an international success, translated in 21 different languages and selling over 4 million copies.

Gnomes are extremely small, human-like creatures who wear pointy red hats, all have beards (the men, not the women) and live in holes beneath the ground. They are benevolent, caring for animals, but also sympathetic to humans. Several subspecies can be distinguished: wood gnomes, garden gnomes, dune gnomes (at the coast), farm gnomes and mill gnomes. Or at least some people believe so; in the olden days, gnomes were an accepted fact of life, as is attested by the widespread knowledge of them, but their ever rarer sightings have confined them to the realm of folklore.

This map shows the extent of the gnome habitat in Europe: vast but fragmented, from Ireland in the west to an eastern boundary deep in Siberia, and from high up in Scandinavia to a southern limit running through Belgium to Switzerland and down into the northern Balkan. Southern countries like France, Spain, Italy, Albania, most of ex-Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece are (almost) completely gnome-free. Heavy concentrations of gnomes can be found in the British Isles, Scandinavia, the Alps and Carpathians and areas of Belarus and the Ukraine.

Map O’ The Day #19 – 2008 Voting vs. 1800’s Cotton Production

The top map is voting patterns in this 2008 election– the bottom map is cotton production in 1860

Map O’ The Day # 18 – World’s First Sat Nav

So, this isn’t REALLY a map, but it’s just too cool to pass up.

Satellite navigation (SatNav) is a lot older than previously thought. In fact, it’s even decades older than man-made satellites themselves. This fantastic contraption, called the ‘Routefinder’, showed 1920s drivers in the UK the roads they were travelling down, gave them the mileage covered and told them to stop when they came at journey’s end.

The technology - a curious cross between the space age and the stone age - consisted of a little map scroll inside a watch, to be ’scrolled’ (hence the word) as the driver moved along on the map. A multitude of scrolls could be fitted in the watch to suit the particular trip the driver fancied taking.

The system has several obvious drawbacks - a limited number of available journeys, and the inability of the system to respond to sudden changes of direction. Also: no warning of road works or traffic jams ahead.

Not that there were that many traffic jams in 1920s Britain. The Routefinder, one of many bizarre patented gadgets now on display at the British Library, didn’t take off because there were too few drivers, i.e. potential customers, at that time in Britain. Or maybe also because it was a bit impractical, distracting drivers from what they were supposed to watch - the road.