That seems to be the main point we disagree on. This conversation won’t go anywhere until there’s a consensus on this. To me, the goal of language (and the words that compose that language) is to optimize transfer of information. In colloquial conversations and news headlines, we optimize for the rate of information transfer. In more formal settings like academia or legalese, we optimize for minimal ambiguity at the expense of the rate.
That seems to be the main point we disagree on. This conversation won’t go anywhere until there’s a consensus on this. To me, the goal of language (and the words that compose that language) is to optimize transfer of information. In colloquial conversations and news headlines, we optimize for the rate of information transfer. In more formal settings like academia or legalese, we optimize for minimal ambiguity at the expense of the rate.
This is a lot of syllables to say “words should mean things.” You’ve somehow turned “communication should be clear” into a peer-reviewed discovery.