Cultures and geography have created a dictionary's worth of words for water. A new video from Vox maps (most of) them out.
The latest in Vox's series of videos brings visual life to two of our favorite subjects: maps and water. Here they explain the premise behind the project:
If you comb through the US Geological Survey, Merriam Webster, and a few other sources, you can get an idea of the differences between firths, tarns, and other bodies of water. It can be tough to remember all the definitions, but the video above puts them together as a journey through a single (slightly fantastical) map.
So the video below explores 39 terms, from Ocean to Lake to Spring and everything in between. To be clear, these are all nouns—so my favorite adjectives, "lotic" (characteristic of quickly moving fresh water) and "lentic" (characteristic of still or standing fresh water), are nowhere to be found.
FULL STORY: 39 water terms, mapped
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