cut takes one column from each line. Columns are parts of a line, separated by one character, such as a space or a comma.

learner@tidepool:~$ cut -d' ' -f2 visits.log
ana
ben
ana

Put the space in quotes: -d' '. Without quotes, the shell removes the space, as you learned in "Quotes".

In a pipeline

cut gives you one column. Then sort and other commands can work on it:

learner@tidepool:~$ cut -d' ' -f2 visits.log | sort
ana
ana
ben

The next lesson counts how many times each name is in the list.