---
title: "WordPress Tip: “Crunching” and “Burning”"
date: 2009-06-06
description: "$( document ).ready(function() { // Handler for .ready() called. $("
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2009/06/06/crunching-and-burning/
---
# WordPress Tip: “Crunching” and “Burning”
So when you upload images into [WordPress](http://wordpress.org), you see a progress bar that says "Crunching." Crunching is sexy. Crunching sounds exciting. Crunching makes you feel like you're on the edge of some new functionality that is so revolutionary, no other term can quite describe it. But really, all crunching means is resizing. When you upload images in WordPress, the image editor resizes the original image into three separate images: thumbnail, medium, and large.

!["Crunching" is really just resizing](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/crunching-600x1691.jpg)

The problem with using the term "crunching" rather than "resizing" is that, although it's cool, most users don't actually realize what's going on. They don't realize that they can set the dimensions that the image is being resized to. They don't realize this because crunching is vague. Crunching is eating grape nuts, or stepping on cheerios, or feeding tickets into Chuck-E-Cheese counting machines. Crunching rarely means resizing. The tradeoff for cool interface terms is confusion. 

I've been uploading images into WordPress for my posts for months, always watching the crunching bar extend across the screen. Just last week I made the connection between the dimensions under Settings > Media and the sizes that the uploaded images "crunch" to. Making this connection has been tremendously helpful, and I can't help but wonder if better terms would have helped me see this connection earlier.

![This page doesn't even use the word "crunching"](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/mediasettings-600x2581.jpg)

Even if WordPress kept the cute term "crunching," they should change the title of this page from Image Sizes to Crunching Sizes, or something.