I was discussing this with some friends yesterday, and we’ve basically narrowed it down to three contenders. In order:

  1. Salt
  2. Ice
  3. Copper ore

Rules:

Going by dictionary definition of “rock”, which means “stone”, which means “mineral”.

Water is a mineral according to the dictionary, which is why ice is in there.

Minerals are inorganic according to the dictionary, so things like sugar crystals don’t count, since they’re organic.

So, is it one of those three, or are there other delicious rocks that we’ve overlooked?

  • hperrin@lemmy.caOPEnglish
    4·
    24 hours ago

    Yeah, we’re talking about ice.

    5

    a

    : a solid homogeneous crystalline chemical element or compound that results from the inorganic processes of nature

    broadly  : any of various naturally occurring homogeneous substances (such as stone, coal, salt, sulfur, sand, petroleum, water, or natural gas) obtained usually from the ground

    - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mineral

    The rule we decided on in the discussion was that we would follow the dictionary definition of “rock”, which lead us to conclude that ice is a rock.

    If we want to be super pedantic, the dictionary does have a definition of rock as in “rock candy” that’s a sugar crystal, but we decided in the spirit of the discussion that we would not consider “rock” to include “rock candy”. And for the same reason, we do not include chunks of crack cocaine.

    • voracitude@lemmy.world
      6·
      24 hours ago

      Well, okay, I understand what you mean and why, but you stated “water is a mineral according to the dictionary” in your post, so I was just clarifying that bit. So yeah, Merriam-Webster is wrong.

      Edit: Again, sorry. This is the internet and pedants like me thrive here 😅

      • hperrin@lemmy.caOPEnglish
        4·
        24 hours ago

        I agree, which is why we didn’t include simply “copper”, but “copper ore”, since I don’t think ingots of pure copper occur naturally. (But I could totally be wrong here, I’m just guessing.)

        Ps, I love the pedantry. :)