I think the semantics of "map" are quite a bit more specific than "for". For one thing, "map" functions have a return value which is usually the same length as its argument, which is usually a sequential data-structure. On the other hand, "for"-like functions or statements cannot or do not return values. True, if you ignore the return value from "map", it usually works the same as a "for" loop but the opposite is not true. The return value from 'map' is all the difference in the world and allows chaining of transformations amongst other things.