Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
But if you believe in a false definition you can still err.
I see this on occasion in aviation maintenance, where a misunderstanding of a technical term results in thousands of dollars of damage to a part, a damaged or scrapped part, or damage done unintentionally.

"No, it means this {other thing} to me" will not recover that part. That is the stance which you are taking, and it sets you up for error.

The above problem makes writing technical manuals and technical instructions so darned important. That discipline uses glossaries or industry standards that have a Common Language established so that one knows what words mean. (Or terms).

For our discussions here, a Common Language is very helpful (as RAW is in various rules discussions) to make sure that we are talking about the same concept. If you are talking about Budweiser beer, and I am speaking of Pork Rinds, our discourse has a lot of dysfunction in it.

When you take a word that embodies a concept, and you then twist or misapply it, you will - whether you mean to or not - twist or misapply the concept behind it and set yourself up for errors both large and small...in your native language.

It gets a bit rougher when using another language.
Those are all examples of someone misunderstanding instructions though. That is not the same thing as being unable to come to a correct conclusion because you don't know the proper terms for the thing you are describing.

My conclusion doesn't hinge on whether I choose to call the option with the best risk to reward ratio the optimal path, the most efficient path, the best path, or the whang-doodle-boodle-ga-ga path.

The fact that you acknowledge that people speak different languages imples to me that you already understand this; otherwise it would be impossible for people from different countries to ever come to the same conclusion about anything; and woe to people who never learned to speak at all!