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the spine of the world, where two slopes meet and refuse to pick a side

means A long, narrow elevated stretch of land, rock, or other surface, often formed where two slopes meet at the top.

from From Old English 'hrycg,' meaning the back or spinethe same word once used for the bony ridge running down a body. It has Germanic cousins, like German 'Rücken' (back), and the sense gradually climbed outward from the body's spine to the spine of a hill, a roof, or a wave.

watershed linerain falling here splits toward opposite oceans
roof crownthe topmost beam runs the building's whole length
fingerprint featurethose swirling lines are literally called friction ridges
ocean originmid-ocean ridges birth new seafloor along Earth's longest mountain chain
pressure proofridges form where colliding plates have nowhere to go but up
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