Catherine McKay wrote: > > You learn new things every day - there are > probably entire battles being waged behind the scenes > by irate geographers and geologists all yelling at > each other "Is!" "Is not!" "Take that so-called > continent and shove it up your chonies!" and so on. > And we, far from the groves of academe, have > absolutely no idea what plotting and manoeuvering go > on behind those ivied walls.
You're right about the battles being waged! Recently I read about the current battle over maps, and how certain countries are always at the top and others at the bottom (and the inferences sometimes made from those positions). According to the people trying to get Rand McNally and other big mapmakers to reconsider the way they show the world, British (I think) mapmakers long ago decided on the orientation we're all used to seeing and now we take those views of the world as "the way it is". In reality, the earth is one big ball in space so how is it decided who's at the top? Relative to what? The article included a world map drawn another way and I felt topsy-turvy just looking at it. Debra Shea
