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ragbag:

chaffinch map of scotland

edwin morgan, the the scots makar, wrote a poem called the chaffinch map of scotland back in 1965. it’s a map that shows what people in different regions of scotland call the chaffinch. here are 10 reasons why it is the bomb diggity:

1. it’s a bona fide poem (literature)
2. it’s an unconventional map (cartography)
3. it’s more than just text—it has its own visual aesthetic (art)
4. it’s about birds and birds are freaky little animals that nobody understands (ornithology)
5. it’s about regional dialects (linguistics)
6. it’s about scotland and scotland has got it going on (scottish nationalism)
7. its typesetting is essential to its execution (typography)
8. it shows how different people see a similar part of their world differently (perspectivism)
9. it’s about something which is named after the sound that it makes (onomatopoeia)
10. a possible (and affirmed) interpretation of it is that the birds change their call from region to region just as humans change their dialect (ornithological linguistics?!?)