I wish to clarify that I’m not asserting that everyone knows exactly what things are “chemicals” and what things are not. There’s room for disagreement, for one thing, and the disagreements might turn on all kinds of little points about where a substance came from and even why it was added to the food. But I do think that given two lists of ingredients for different brands of, say, packaged guacamole, you could distinguish “few to no chemicals” from “lots of chemicals”. That there isn’t a strict, look-up-able boundary of necessary and sufficient conditions that fits in a “coherent model” doesn’t mean it’s not useful to gesture at for some purposes, sort of like music genres. I don’t have a coherent model of music genres and I couldn’t elaborate much on what I mean if I call a song “poppy” or “jazzy” but that doesn’t mean it’s not a statement I might reasonably utter.
It’s a statement that’s reasonable to utter, and a statement that a more music-savvy friend might want to understand by asking what you mean, getting some positive and negative examples, and suggesting more precise terminology (along with suggesting specific music, one hopes). Pointing out that your use of those words is likely to confuse people and search engines is something I’d expect you to encourage rather than invoking your peeve. Note that I recognize that this comment may be an example of the thing you oppose—I’m verbosely challenging a (possibly) non-central point. I’d be interested to hear whether you find this example to be exasperating or valuable.
Suggesting search engine terms might be helpful. I don’t think I’d ever find “you’re going to confuse people” helpful—either I already know that I’m not being very precisely expressive and these are all the words I have, or, if that’s not the case, “could you elaborate/rephrase that” would be better. I didn’t feel exasperated by this comment but might by a long chain of them on this branch.
I wish to clarify that I’m not asserting that everyone knows exactly what things are “chemicals” and what things are not. There’s room for disagreement, for one thing, and the disagreements might turn on all kinds of little points about where a substance came from and even why it was added to the food. But I do think that given two lists of ingredients for different brands of, say, packaged guacamole, you could distinguish “few to no chemicals” from “lots of chemicals”. That there isn’t a strict, look-up-able boundary of necessary and sufficient conditions that fits in a “coherent model” doesn’t mean it’s not useful to gesture at for some purposes, sort of like music genres. I don’t have a coherent model of music genres and I couldn’t elaborate much on what I mean if I call a song “poppy” or “jazzy” but that doesn’t mean it’s not a statement I might reasonably utter.
It’s a statement that’s reasonable to utter, and a statement that a more music-savvy friend might want to understand by asking what you mean, getting some positive and negative examples, and suggesting more precise terminology (along with suggesting specific music, one hopes). Pointing out that your use of those words is likely to confuse people and search engines is something I’d expect you to encourage rather than invoking your peeve.
Note that I recognize that this comment may be an example of the thing you oppose—I’m verbosely challenging a (possibly) non-central point. I’d be interested to hear whether you find this example to be exasperating or valuable.
Suggesting search engine terms might be helpful. I don’t think I’d ever find “you’re going to confuse people” helpful—either I already know that I’m not being very precisely expressive and these are all the words I have, or, if that’s not the case, “could you elaborate/rephrase that” would be better. I didn’t feel exasperated by this comment but might by a long chain of them on this branch.