Ok....
What this topic has demonstrated is that 'issue 1' is an issue in itself, the failure to communicate impressions of sound when borrowing terms associated with other senses. 'Issue 2' is just an attempt to clear the air.
That's where I believe you are wrong. I think you are conflating "imprecision" with "failure." They are not the same. Imprecise descriptions and trading of subjective impressions and terms
are used all the time in real life to get things done. As I've said repeatedly, if this weren't the case, then my job would be impossible, because we are exchanging subjective impressions constantly among ourselves and with clients. Sometimes the words being used have a direct technical reference, sometimes they don't, but we can often agree on the essential issues we are hearing and describing to fix or manipulate tracks.
This is why I have claimed people sometimes seem to "reason in a bubble" about these things on this site, where the attitude can be: "
If I don't find this lack of precision acceptable, then it's pointless or too imprecise to be of any worth." Where in fact these things do real-world work in communicating about sound.
(And we borrow examples from various senses all the time. When a friend and I listen to two different speakers and both find A to be "brighter" sounding than B, that's a descriptor borrowed from sight - "brighter" clearly originally came from an attempt to put sonic impressions in to words by borrowing from another sense experience. But the term is useful and helps us describe our impressions. Similarly, I have found plenty of subjective descriptions "accurately describe" to what I hear from a product. And, even in the example I gave of the Joseph speakers, virtually every subjective review I've seen zeroed in on and described numerous characteristics of the brand as I hear them as well. Scientific level of reliability? No. Still useful to some degree? IMO: Yes.).
But room tone, or ambiant sound, is semi silence. You can't apply it to a sound to simulate a rooms acoustic effect on sound.
Yes I could. It would help, at least, in terms of producing a sound I have in mind, and in this case the sound that comes from impressions of my speakers in my room when adding room reflection. I do this kind of stuff all day long. Even moments ago I took a pure bell tone sound and applied a small room reverb, played with reflection times/diffusion etc, and while it certainly did start getting at aspects I hear with my speakers interacting with my room, it missed the slight coarsening of the sound. I took a room tone, slightly enhanced the texture and overlayed it, and it got a bit closer. But I'd have to do even a bit more manipulation of the sound (coarsen it some more, e.g. vocal sibilance takes on a slighty thicker, spittier, rougher/whitened character) to get it closer to what I hear. The addition of the room reverb plug in isn't doing all of that.
(Of course, if I had a plug in that perfectly reproduced my own room effects, then in principle it would be the same sound I hear. But then, I would describe that sound as "grainy" just as I do the real sound in my room).
What you do is add environmental noise, and even recording equipment noise when you take it to far. That the latter can sound grainy is perfectly possible.
What I would to see you do is add quality digital room delay or reverb to a song to obtain a grainy sound, and share the result with us to see how people perceive this. I would take the initiative myself but I know I won't be able to create this effect in this way.
I think it would likely miss the specific sound of how my speakers are interacting with my exact room, so it wouldn't be definitive in any way as to what I am hearing.
I agree though that the idea of interrogating lots of people as to their sonic descriptions of various sound characteristics and distortions, under controlled conditions, would be illuminating.