Danny D. pretended :
On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:42:05 -0500, Dean Hoffman wrote:

A dozen roses in a corn field are a dozen weeds. A weed is any
plant out of place.

The way it works, technically, is that Rock is the big stuff that weathers
to stones, which is the small stuff, and, over time, stones weather to
"soil" which is a complex layered in-situ environment.

Once you displace that soil, then it becomes dirt.
So, dirt is merely soil that is not in situ anymore.

There's an entire concurrent thread on this distinction over he
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!fo....usage.english

The thread it titled:
Dirt is now soil; rock is not stone
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...sh/GvvXEfk9CyQ

Different meanings for different sciences. It pays also to consider
that word usage is sort of like dictionary definitions. Both describe
how words are being used and not necessarily how they *should* be used.

I would say that you would start with minerals and when several
minerals are mixed together into a solid chunk it is rock no matter the
size. Stone can be removed from a rock quarry and seems to imply that
stone is serving some useful purpose as building material for instance.
River rocks are often used in decorative building material, but it
doesn't mean that they cease being rock just because they are used like
stone.

I had heard that there is a progression from sands (clay, silt, sand)
when dead boilogical material is added it is termed 'dirt' and when
living biological material is added it becomes termed as 'soil', but
then again different sciences may make different distinctions.