# understanding a word **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 10, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182 "2017-04-10T17:05:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bladerunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e5b9ba/32.png) [@bladerunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bladerunner)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182/21 "2017-04-11T11:38:50Z")
did the mince and dice thing…still the quest… like for tree why… or say chop down the tree and cut off its branch …why is it also cut down a tree and chop off its branch.😕 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182/22 "2017-04-11T12:47:45Z")
> [@bladerunner](#): > > did the mince and dice thing…still the quest… like for tree why… or say chop down the tree and cut off its branch …why is it also cut down a tree and chop off its branch.😕 Better to work on getting the kids to grasp and accept the concept that generally, spoken language is not machine code. Insofar as there are rules and definitions, they are imperfect, and they are derived, not necessarily prescriptive. If it sounds right, that’s often enough for it to _be_ right. In your tree example, you can see why it makes sense - using the same word repeatedly in a sentence often sounds awkward, so we tend to use synonyms, even if they are imprecise. (Although it is sometimes done deliberately for emphasis - e.g. “we’re going to be tough - tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182/23 "2017-04-11T12:50:42Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Explain mince and dice. Once they have those down, move on to chop. Interesting. In a professional kitchen, terms for cutting things up are actually quite well-defined [https://le-fermier.com/2015/08/07/back-to-basics-5-formal-vegetable-cuts/](https://le-fermier.com/2015/08/07/back-to-basics-5-formal-vegetable-cuts/) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182/24 "2017-04-11T12:52:09Z")
ETA partly ninja’d by **Mangetout** It still sounds like this is ESL school, which brings in different issues. Or perhaps a school for kids with psych issues who’re real big on extreme precision even if that’s an inappropriate expectation. At any rate … Perhaps try an analogy to food: Taste some soup. Add some salt. Taste again. Take a different bowl of the same soup. Add pepper. Taste that. All three are the same soup but all three taste a little different. Chop and cut are different seasonings of the same idea, to separate something into parts. Chop implies greater violence and lesser precision. Chopping is necessarily noisy. Chop is also more “flavorful” and cut is more bland and generic. The reason you can cut or chop a tree then chop or cut a branch is all about which parts of the process the speaker wants to make more flavorful. Just like all three soups are tasty, just not in the exact same way. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182/25 "2017-04-11T13:01:22Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Interesting. In a professional kitchen, terms for cutting things up are actually quite well-defined > [https://le-fermier.com/2015/08/07/back-to-basics-5-formal-vegetable-cuts/](https://le-fermier.com/2015/08/07/back-to-basics-5-formal-vegetable-cuts/) Love it! When we work together in the kitchen, one of us is cooking, the other is helping. My gf, cooking, once asked me to dice an onion. Checking my work, she said she wanted a smaller dice. I argued that would be a fine-dice or maybe a mince. The discussion never got heated, but we still have a difference of opinion over the dice/fine dice/mince thing. I’ll show her the article. (When she isn’t holding a knife)😉 ---
**Author:** ![bladerunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e5b9ba/32.png) [@bladerunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bladerunner)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182/26 "2017-04-11T17:22:51Z")
thanks everyone for all your time and help.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182/27 "2017-04-11T17:29:13Z")
Chop is a subset of cut. Slice is a subset of cut. Blessed are the cheesemakers. ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182/28 "2017-04-11T19:39:23Z")
Chop me off a piece of cheese, will ya please? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-a-word/784182.md?page=1)