What do the stones/rocks look like?

[GoodTaste]

Today's English practice is looking at the picture and make a sentence on the topic of "What do the stones/rocks look like?"

Student A: They look like the spine of a huge dinosaur. (Teacher notes: OK. You have the potential to become an anotomist.)

Student B: They just look like shit. (Teacher notes: 5 points from your group for dirty mouthing).

Student C: They look awesome. What a beautiful place. I'd like to go to there for sightseeing. (Teacher:.......)

The question of this thread is what word is more proper to describe it: Stone or rock?

Rock is defined as "the dry solid part of the earth's surface, or any large piece of this that sticks up out of the ground or the sea" - the things here are large enough to be called rock.

But is "stone" wrong to describe them?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Stone and rock are both correct.

Some people think there's a difference. Some don't.

The definition you quoted is incomplete. A rock isn't always the earth's crust. You can throw a rock. (You can throw a stone, too.)

 

[emsr2d2]

I would call them rocks.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I would call them rocks.

I won't cast the first stone.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Generally speaking, we can throw stones in BrE; we can't throw rocks. I'd call the things in that picture rocks.

It might be another difference between US and UK English.

I used to work with a publicist, and he liked to say, "A press release should always throw a rock."

 

[Skrej]

To me, as a speaker of AmE, they're synonymous.

At the moment, I can't think of an example where I couldn't interchange the two terms.

 

[Tdol]

They're rocks to me, and they do look like the spine of a dinosaur. Dirty mouthing doesn't work for me. You could say for being foul-mouthed/for swearing/for bad language IMO.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

They're rocks to me, and they do look like the spine of a dinosaur. Dirty mouthing doesn't work for me. You could say for being foul-mouthed/for swearing/for bad language IMO.

Agreed!

In the US, we say bad-mouthing., but it means denegrating: He can't make a speech without bad-mouthing someone.

I've never heard dirty-mouthing either. I guess I'm not the only one.

 

[Rover_KE]

I've never heard dirty-mouthing either.

I bet you've heard potty-mouth, though, if not potty-mouthing.

 

[Skrej]

We do refer to people's 'dirty mouth', though.

 

[Tdol]

You hear wash your dirty mouth out with soap for people who swear.

 

[emsr2d2]

You hear wash your dirty mouth out with soap for people who swear.

I've never heard it with "dirty" - just "Wash your mouth out with soap!" I've also heard "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?!"

Going back to the original question, I call something a rock if it's of the size on which one can practice rock-climbing. You definitely can't do that on stones.

 

[GoodTaste]

We do refer to people's 'dirty mouth', though.

Make Siri repeatedly listen to Cambridge Dictionary when it pronounces "quantum" in UK pronunciation, and Siri would spell it as "cu*t, cu*t, cu*t..." whether you set Siri's language as British English or American English. Siri correctly spells "quantum" when listening to American English pronunciation.

It immediately makes me think that Siri is foul-mouthing or dirty-mouthing. I am still not sure whether "dirty-mouthing" is proper in English.

PS. Cambridge Dictionary's "quantum" is here:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/quantum

quantum noun [ C ] PHYSICS specialized
UK /ˈkwɒn.təm/ US /ˈkwɑːn.t̬əm/
plural quanta
the smallest amount or unit of something, especially energy:

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . I am still not sure whether "dirty-mouthing" is proper in English.

No. We say talking dirty. (It's conversational, not grammatical.)

Foul-mouthed is an adjective, not a verb:

- What a foul-mouthed child!

We don't say dirty-mouthed.

Dirty mouth and foul mouth are an adjective followed by a noun, not a verb phrase:

- She has a dirty mouth.
- It's high time you outgrew your foul mouth!