there are so many possible configurations, they sort of have to jumble words. like if there was a series of tremors that rolled millions of cats into a millions of weasle colonies, and 10 novel combinations of mammal emerged along a gradient, it’s easy to just mash the words based on ratios and call it a day. especially with soil formation, this blending has probably happened in 50 different ways within 5 miles of wherever you are.

also, the texture classification is a small (but crucial) part of the broader taxonomy, which is like the linnaean system for species. the “silty loam” is really just a last specific bit of a soil’s full classification, which is also specific to a depth (aka horizon). a lot of the other parts are about factors affecting its formation. the full name/classification of a specific soil looks like:

Order, Suborder, Great Group, Subgroup, family, Series

so the “silty loam” is like only part of the series section. below is a list of full soil classifications (the second column). they usually list things backwards (from series -> order).

a decade plus after classes, i remember off the cuff like maybe 3-4 soil orders (out of 12) and a few terms outside of textural classifications, but they indicate things like moisture regime, parent material, biota, how “weathered” they are… so if you have all the terms memorized (like i may have, once, for an exam) and see the name, you would be able to articulate a lot about the place… it’s climate, its plant life, how prone it is to flooding, its historical context (is it an old stream bed, did it used to be something else, like a coastline or an eroded rock formation, etc).

it’s a crazy system.