for some reason we seem to love to categorize things. i'm not sure whether that's because we want it to be different, or to make it look better than something else, or what. i remember when we used to cut the grass with a lawn tractor, but now that is a lawn mower, which is not to be confused with a tractor, which has to be bigger, by definition. gravely tractors are neither tractor or mower, or scut, or cut, or any other acronym by today's naming conventions, but 20 years ago tractor was a fine term for them.
the same thing happened with cars and trucks. full size, midsize, compact, and then sub-compact... by the way, i recently saw this tiny thing that resembled a car, so i looked it up when i got home. it's a smart fortwo. it sure looks like a car, only smaller. does this mean we now have a sub-sub-compact class? and when we buy an f450 or 550, is that like going to mcdonald's and supersizing it?
but back to tractors... the older john deere 4xx series from the 80's had a loader option and we had a 318 with ag tires, 3ph, and a rear pto rototiller. they're no larger than today's mowers, but i guess they would be scut's now? scut's and cut's can have mid mount mowers, so wouldn't that mean that they aren't tractors, but just overgrown lawn mowers? in my mind, they're all tractors if they do some sort of yard or farm work, the only difference is what attachments you can get for them.
