A Penny's Worth of Thoughts: Difference of Meaning

You hear so much these days of arguments over two interpretations of words.  Some being twisted to suit a certain perspective, others in ignorance or confusion of what the meaning actually is.  Yet, you can still find that both of those meanings can be correct, even in a general sense.

Take, for example, allergies.  If you ask most people what allergies are, the responses will typically be one of two: either they are a seasonal or context based annoyance to a person, usually of the nasal variety, or they will be potentially life threatening if not caught early enough, usually through consumption.  Does that make the seasonal sufferers pity the severe ones, or in the reverse, the severe sufferers wish they could trade off their allergens for the less threatening variety?  It's possible, though it tends to vary person to person.

The point here is that, although the word itself has multiple meanings, each meaning is held at it's equivalent value, usually after the person either specifies or explains their severity.  Why is it, then, that it is more difficult for people to agree on other such variable words?  My thought: because the meaning each side agrees with is based on their perspective of the subject, where it can be more difficult to explain why that is it's meaning due to what I would call an experience gap.  That the meaning that we understand is based more on what we are familiar with, and it is the context, or lack thereof, that throws us off.

I've had some of my own experience on this as of late, from seeing people put quotes around the word essential, as if to demean it to either themselves or to others, to me almost mentally doing it to a phrase, wait time, as I sat on the phone to a DES line seeking answers on an unemployment question, usually after a few minute average extends into hours.  In fact, some of you may have even expected me to do it just then, despite it being grammatically correct either way, if with some word change.

The sad part is, the only way I could see resolving this particular puzzle is to suggest being more open minded to the alternatives, which for many is not an easy task.  I find it perhaps even more of a puzzle to find a middle ground otherwise, as it is an issue that, outside of certain groups potentially, is rarely seen, even rarer discussed.  But it can be done.

Just ask any number of leaders you can come across in Guild Wars 2 why they use the shorthand for crowd control, or CC, as a way of requesting more damage per second, or DPS, on a single boss enemy when in squads or groups.

Just a penny's worth of thoughts, for those who can see the meaning of it.