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Rock v. Stone: The Great Conundrum · Street Smart Naturalist

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Greetings.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is David B.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Williams and the podcast of my newsletter,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Street Smart Naturalist, Explorations of the Urban Kind.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Every week I share my observations and adventures with the human
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: and natural world around Seattle, Puget Sound, and the Pacific Northwest.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode explores an age-old question central to GeoGeeks Worldwide.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about my work,
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: including my next book,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: In the Range of Fire and Ice,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: A Human and Natural History of Washington's Cascades,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: please go to my website, geologywriter.com.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: You'll also find a link to my Substack newsletter and my previous five and
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: a half years of newsletters, as well as images tied to this week's episode.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for joining me on this adventure,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: and welcome to Podcast 84 of the Street Smart Naturalist,
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Rock or Stone, July 16, 2026.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Rock or Stone?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Questions such as this have tempted many of the great minds over the centuries.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not surprisingly, I too, a geo-geek, have pondered this conundrum and its implications.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: In my book,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Stories and Stone,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I used the terms interchangeably,
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: based mostly on how they sounded or how frequently I used one or the other.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I still do that,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: but realize that there might be other ways to consider the use of rock and stone.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: In his wonderful book, Stone by Stone, Robert Thorson writes, Rock is raw material in situ.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Stone usually connotes either human handling or human use.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: In other words,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: rock is wild and stone is tamed,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: somewhat akin to the difference between wood and lumber.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or, taking a more capitalistic approach, stone is rock that you pay money for.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: But then again,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: there are those who think that stone is more British,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: that stones are smooth and rocks rough, or stones are small and rocks are big.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Seeking a more erudite source in my quest for petralexographic knowledge,
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I turned to one of my favorite books,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: the Oxford English Dictionary, OED, to get the fine opinion of its worthy editors.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: The first definition for rock is a large, rugged mass of hard mineral material or stone.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Its first use comes from Old English, dated at 950 to 1100.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: The OED defined stone as a piece of rock or hard mineral substance of a small
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: or moderate size, first used in 825.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, I was wrong in hoping the erudite oxfordites would help.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I did learn, though,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: that the word stone rock defined as a pointed or projecting rock, a peak, a crag,
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: a detached mass of rock,
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: a boulder or large stone, Predates either of the singular words stone or rock.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Stonerock,
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: or stanroquus,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: as it was spelled, dates from the early Old English, used from 600 to 950.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that this clarifies my quest.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But as is the norm for the OED,
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed the many definitions and uses for the terms,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: which run to three pages for rock,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: including rock nosing,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: rock chuck,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: and rock embosomed,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: and four and a half pages for stone,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: with such nifty combinations as stone harmonicum, stone pock, and stone toter.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Ever optimistic, I thought I might find further illumination from on high.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: In the King James Bible, KJB,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Stone and rock seem interchangeable,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: such as in Genesis 31, 46,
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: where we read of Jacob telling his brother to gather stones and they took stones
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: and made a heap.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: As someone who wrote an entire book about heaps of rock,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why those KGB writers didn't just use the far better term cairn,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: and they call the KGB authoritative.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: But there are two situations where stone and rock cannot be substituted for one another.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: The first is the surprisingly common biblical pastime where somebody must stone them
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: with stones.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can stone them with rocks,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: but no matter how tin your ear is,
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: you cannot rock them with rocks,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: which allows for the introduction of this silly phrase.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can, at least since the 1960s, rock them with a stone.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: More common than death by stone is the affirmation of a holy being as the rock
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: of one's salvation.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, except for the most geodorky, one would never say, the stone of one's salvation.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: This sense highlights a central difference between the words.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: People often use rock to refer to something solid, large,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: grounded,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: substantial, or something to base your faith on, such as a mountain or palisade.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, this is Mr. Thorson's definition of raw material in situ.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Stone, while connoting a hard mineral substance,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: favors smaller objects,
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: such as something you can pick up in your hands,
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: for example, the stones for the cairn gathered by Jacob's pals.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Seeking out an even higher authority, I turned to Shakespeare.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: He also incorporated stone and rock into his writings,
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: more than 115 times and 50 times, respectively.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of his most famous uses comes from As You Like It.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: In the banished duke's ode to a new forested life.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: In this,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: our life exempt from public haunt,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: fine tongues in trees,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: books in the running brooks, sermons and stones, and good and everything.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: the bard chose stone for the alliteration and sound,
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: as he did in Titus Andronicus,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: where the title character states,
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: By the way,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: one of my favorite poets,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Robinson Jeffers, refers to the insolent quietness of stone.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Shakespeare's use of rock was often specific to the sea as something to fear.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Rocks that threaten us with wreck,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: from Henry VI,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Part III, Act V,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Scene 5, or,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: and then there's the peril of waters, winds,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: and rocks,
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: from The Merchant of Venice,
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: and finally, alas, the sea casts me on the rocks, from Pericles.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: No one, especially with Shakespeare's gifts, would substitute stone in these situations.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Again, his use of rock reflects the idea that rock refers to massive,
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: immovable matter, though this idea does not limit rock to this definition.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot end my consideration of these terms without turning to one final source
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: of inspiration,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: that of big-time wrestling,
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: or rasslin, as one former National Park Service superintendent who I knew called it.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: I refer to the two icons of that theater, The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Mr. Rock,
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: or Dwayne Johnson,
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: as he is formerly known,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: starred in two movies about geology,
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: San Andreas and Journey 2,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: each of which is equally preposterous from a geological point of view.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And according to Wikipedia,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Mr. Austin's name came about in reference to a cup of tea and its temperature.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: What these fellows illustrate is that although rock
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: and stone can often be interchangeable,
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: there are times when one is more appropriate than the other.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I doubt that the two wrestling chaps would want to be known as the stone
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: or rock-cold Steve Austin.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wrestling aside, I do think that there is some difference between the terms.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Stone more often implies some sort of human use and also seems more restricted
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: to smaller material.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: But rock can also be used in these situations.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, I'm back to a simple but basically useless statement.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: All stones are rocks, but not all rocks are stones.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Clear as mud.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Once again,
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: this is David B.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Williams,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: author and voice of The Street Smart Naturalist, Explorations of the Urban Kind.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: A weekly newsletter and podcast focusing on the human
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: and natural world around Seattle, Puget Sound, and the Pacific Northwest.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like more details about my walks, talks,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: and books,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: including my next book,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the Range of Fire and Ice,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: along with a link to sign up for my newsletter and podcast,
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: check out my website, geologywriter.com.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to slow down, pay attention, and enjoy the world around you.