But STOP does mean stop. Stop executing this subroutine.
If the program were instead (as a set of commands for a person, not a turtle) START WALKING; STOP; START CLAPPING; STOP; ... any child would understand what was intended. It would be more confusing if the first STOP here meant "stop all program execution, never proceed to the next step".
So the problem isn't STOP, it's the fact that there's more program to execute, hidden in the call stack.
If the program were instead (as a set of commands for a person, not a turtle) START WALKING; STOP; START CLAPPING; STOP; ... any child would understand what was intended. It would be more confusing if the first STOP here meant "stop all program execution, never proceed to the next step".
So the problem isn't STOP, it's the fact that there's more program to execute, hidden in the call stack.