Thoughts on 'Cutting'

I have three friends who follow three different fields: writing, exercising, and psychology. At first glance, these three interests have nothing to do with one another. Of course, if you tried hard enough, you could find similarities. One such similarity is that they all use the term 'cutting'. However, although the term is the same, the meanings are vastly different.

In writing, cutting is the act of removing text. It could be words, phrases, sentences, and so on. In exercising, cutting is the act of lowering body fat percentage. This can be done by burning more calories than one ingests or by adding more muscle mass (making the amount of body fat relatively lower). In psychology, or at least in therapy, cutting means a form of self-mutilation.

It occurs to me that 'cutting' is an abbreviation of sorts. In writing, we are 'cutting out' (which is synonymous with removing) and the cutting of exercising is 'cutting down' (which is lowering). The form of cutting used in mutilation is the standard form of cutting, by which I mean to slice open with a sharp object. That 'cutting' stands on its own, but it could also be short for the phrase 'cutting open'.

What this all means is that every field has its own specialized vocabulary, but not always unique words. If you are writing for an audience within that field, feel free to use that vocabulary. If you are writing for others, you should spell things out to void confusion. In general, context can explain a lot of what you are intending, but you can save your audience a lot of trouble by just explaining your vocabulary to begin with.