May/June 2023 - 73

Talking Dirty: How the
Language We Use Affects
the Foundation
Industry
FEATURE ARTICLE
SPECIAL
ISSUE
Have you heard a geotechnical engineer
rail against using the word " dirt " ? The
typical maxim is: " It's not dirt, it's soil! "
This axiom is so prevalent that it is
joked about on the construction site.
How did we get to the point in our
profession that soil is too technical to
understand, while dirt is not viewed as
important?
Take a moment and think about the
images that come to mind by the word
soil. Responses range from the sand at a
playground to the mud that sticks to the
bottom of your shoe, the dark loam
found in gardens to the firm earth under
your feet. But do you know where the
term soil originated? Or how it was
intended to be used?
This article looks at how word
choice can lead to very different
motivations for owners, designers and
constructors.
Terminology
A brief disclaimer is necessary - not all
dirt is soil, and not all soil is dirt. The
use of these terms is dependent on
context . Each of the fol lowing
definitions are rooted in a discipline's
history, highlighting the wide variety of
perspectives. There are many more
variances in colloquial terminology
around the world, each with their own
history and perspectives.
* From a geological perspective, soil
refers to the change over time of
sediment deposition and pedogenesis.
Jacob Joffe's work entitled
Pedology contains a commonly used
definition of soil as " ...a natural body
of animal, mineral and organic constituents
differentiated into horizons
of variable depth... "
* From an engineering perspective,
soil is a functional term. Perry
Rahn's Engineering Geology classification
comes to mind, where soil is a
" ... fragmented material below
cobble size that can be excavated
without blasting. "
* From a linguistic perspective, from
Middle English, the noun soil refers
to " firm land, the upper layer of
earth that may be dug or plowed. "
From Latin, the verb soil means " to
stain, to defile morally, to make
unclean, and to taint. "
* From a sociological perspective, in
the book Purity and Danger, Mary
Douglas pointed out that " if we can
abstract pathogenicity and hygiene
from our notion of dirt, we are left
AUTHORS Ashley Shirer, Ph.D., P.E., RPA, Holocene Engineering
DEEP FOUNDATIONS * MAY/JUNE 2023 * 73
with the odd definition of dirt as
matter out of place. "
* From an archaeological perspective,
soil is formed in place, while sediments
are separated from their
original fabric by depositional events
that are either natural or anthropogenic,
and in some cases soil
formation is itself a product of
human activity.
* From a soil scientist's perspective,
soil is related to the agricultural
productivity of the land and has
potential to drive social change
quite literally by erosion.
* From a construction contractor's
perspective, not all soil is the same.
Subsurface materials vary by excavation
difficulty and drilling production
rates, near surface soils are seen
as removeable, and aggregate is a
material to be placed and controlled.
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May/June 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May/June 2023
