We were looking for rocks to put in one of our flower beds instead of mulch yesterday — or maybe we were looking for stones. Some places called them some kind of rocks (e.g., river-rocks) and other places called them stones (e.g., landscaping stones.)
Well, you’d probably never guess, but that got me to thinking… what the heck is the difference in a rock and a stone? The “things” we have in front of a wall in our front yard were always referred to as stones by a little girl (Sophia) that used to live a couple of houses away. Emily refers to the same “things” as rocks. Sophia’s parents were both of European descent, so the use of stones may be more of a European expression.
This seemed to be one of those questions that just begged for some extensive research. The dictionary is usually a good place to begin extensive research, although it seldom provides acceptable answers. Checking the Merriam-Webster dictionary, here’s what I found:
Rock: a large mass of stone forming a cliff, promontory, or peak
Stone: a concretion of earthly or mineral matter: (1) such a concretion of indeterminate size or shape.
Rock is also listed as a synonym for stone….
So, Merriam-Webster wasn’t much help to me again.
I got to thinking about the terminology I use when handling or looking at these “things.” Since I’m not sure there’s much difference in the composition or material, I sometimes find myself categorizing them by size, like: if it’s really small, I sometimes refer to it as a pebble, if it’s a bit larger I might call it a stone, bigger yet I usually call it a rock, and if it’s really, really big or huge, it’s a boulder to me.
One theory that I uncovered is that while a rock is sitting undisturbed on the ground, it’s a rock; once you pick it up to use it, it’s a stone. I decided there really isn’t a satisfactory answer to my question, so….
I moved on to just thinking about rocks and stones. We use both rock and stone in our language fairly often and usually they don’t refer to those “things.”
There is rock music, like rock ‘n’ roll and it also refers to something we often do in a chair. A diamond is often referred to as a rock. Some of the phrases we use them in would really sound strange if we substituted stone for rock or rock for stone….
Between a rock and a hard place just doesn’t have the same ring if you say between a stone and a hard place. And remember when you were a kid you’d say, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?” Do you think, “sticks and rocks may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” would have ever caught on?
Something can be hard as a rock or solid as a rock or steady as a rock; you can have your drink on the rocks or have rocks in your head, but don’t rock the boat and we’ve all heard about the hand that rocks the cradle. You probably think this blog has now hit rock bottom, but it hasn’t.
How about something being carved in stone, or leave no stone unturned or maybe kill two birds with one stone. One can be stone sober or just a stone’s throw away — of course none of this is cast in stone or should you cast the first stone.
Try substituting rock for stone or stone for rock in the expressions listed — they just don’t sound right, do they? So maybe the words were invented to help us express ourselves, not to describe the “things.” Truthfully, I don’t know — I’ve heard that a rolling stone gathers no moss, but a rock just rolls… and I really don’t want either, but I guess if I had to make a choice, I’d rather have a kidney stone than a kidney rock.
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