kg9qm said:
It's seemingly impossible for some here here to bridge the gap from 'what was said' to 'what was meant'
In my opinion, that's a Very Good Thing. Too often, I see responses in these forums where people ignore the plain-English meanings of the posts to which they're responding, making their responses somewhat less-than-relevant to the topic.
When discussing certain types of topics (esp. technical and legal), the precise meanings of words are very important. I'm sure many people discussing contracts or post-implementation details of engineering would love to use a "what was meant" definition of the words they've written - as opposed to the
real definition of those words. Sadly, though, words have meanings, and we should be held to the meanings of the words we use.
When I was a small child, I didn't appreciate the "grown-up's" occasional use of the phrase "do what I mean, not what I say" (i.e. when they misspoke while telling me what to do, I did what they said, and they were then unsatisifed with the results - only because they failed to articulate their desires). I, like most(?) engineers,
really don't like the same situation when I'm told to implement one thing, I implement it, but am later told that my implementation, while satisfying (or even surpassing) the requirements I was given, doesn't actually do what was "meant".
EDIT: "Grown-up" example... I grew up in a single-income household, where Dad was a public school teacher. It should be clear that we were not financially well-off. We kids (there are 4 of us) would sometimes grab a quick snack by taking a soup spoon and getting about 1/4 cup of peanut butter out of its jar. Peanut butter was/is expensive. My Dad finally said "don't eat peanut butter from a spoon". Of course, he
meant that we were only to use peanut butter on sandwiches, etc. But that's not what he
said. Not long after that edict, my Dad caught me with a
fork loaded up with peanut butter. He called me on it. I referred him to his prohibition on
spoons. Being a relatively logical individual, Dad acknowledged that I hadn't violated his edict, and I was held blameless. He then issued a new rule, of course.
In summary, say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't say "blue" when you mean "green" or "cyan". Don't say "next Friday" on a Thursday when you mean Eight Days From Today ("next Friday" spoken on a Thursday is a synonym for "tomorrow"). In particular, don't say "squelch is open" in a radio forum when you mean "audio is not muted".
