"Laconic" means "in few words." Here's how Martin Elmer created this map:
This map was produced by running all the various countries’ “History of _____” Wikipedia article through a word cloud, then writing out the most common word to fit into the country’s boundary. The result is thousands of years of human history oversimplified into 100-some words.
Whether this says more about each country or the way we record and teach history is up for debate. Some of the more interesting findings are noted at Flickr. Drag the image around to see the world, or see the whole thing at once at HugePic. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science
Technically Laconic means "of Laconia." It's a reference to the notoriously tight-lipped Spartans. People credited for such responses as "Come and get them", "Then we will fight you in the shade", and "If."
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)