Originally Posted by
zzyzx_xyzzy
Technical vocabulary should serve to clarify particulars. If people are wound up about the technical application of 'load' or 'stand' but are actually in agreement about what the actual forces in the spokes are, it seems like they are having a very stupid argument on both sides.
All I can say is, it happens all the time. Really good engineers take a moment as they do quantitative work and think about how they would explain what they've done. Clarity is always the goal but it can be hard to achieve.
One problem is that a long of terms used in science and engineering have tightly limited definitions, and are completely clear when used in a technical discussion. The same words have much broader usages in casual speech, and hence non-science people can't always understand what the engineers are saying. IMO it's the fault of the engineers for failing to translate effectively, since we are equipped to see the difference, and most non-scientists are not since they don't know the technical usages of the terms.