How do we know what the f*ck people are talking about?
Usually, from context. If as
@MattHooper often describes, we work with people, we get to know what they perceive and how they express themselves. In an audiophile context we may become familiar with certain reviewers—music they listen to, room and equipment they use, comparative perceptions of gear we may have/heard etc. We also know that language is fuzzy, not linear-deterministic. We know that words have multiple meanings. We know that words mean different things when grouped with other words, and so on. And we function with it. Some more, some less. Those who cope less with those aspects of language are often attracted to STEM disciplines, for obvious and perfectly good reasons.
(Emphasis mine)
Yes!
This is a point that is continually missed by people demanding glossaries. It's not that glossaries for subjective terms can't or don't exist, or aren't used between groups of people. But there is a deeper issue inherent in all of this. Glossaries in of themselves are not "necessary." Helpful? Yes. Necessary for any communication of our perceptual impressions? No. We are talking about the basics of human communication. We don't have "glossaries" for every single thing we communicate about all day, but we do our best to describe things to each other, and often do this successfully.
Just like if we see something cool and we do our best to put it in to language to communicate with other people, if we hear something we can try to describe what we hear. Audiophiles are often just trying to put in to language what they hear. Whether a glossary exists or not (and there are some common terms), that is a totally legitimate project - we all do it all the time! And we communicate by adding context, or elaboration. (And in all this I am referring to audible differences!)
So for instance, if I hear two different speakers and I say one sounds "darker" than the other, my audiophile pals will tend to know what I'm getting at. But someone might not be familiar with the term and say "darker? what does that mean? How does it make sense sound could be 'dark? That language must be nonsense!"
That's not what you do when you are trying to communicate or understand a term. If you are actually trying to understand, rather than simply dismiss, you ask: "what do you MEAN by describing speaker A as "darker?" Then I can give more context and elaboration.
So for instance: It's using light as an analogy. Take two different TV displays and dial down the brightness/contrast controls on one of them. The high frequencies - bright areas - will be less vivid, the overall picture somewhat darker, and especially as mixed content comes on screen (e.g. night scenes) there will be a sense of less obvious detail in the darker image. This is what I mean to describe in sonic terms about the difference between two speakers, where one has stronger, more vivid high frequency energy, which "brightens" up the sonic 'image,' especially the high end "highlights" like cymbals etc having more pop, and tends to make detail a bit more vivid and discernible, just like brightening up the high frequencies on a TV set.
Now, some audiophiles will have experienced just such impressions with speakers that vary in high frequency character and "get" what I mean. Someone may not have had a similar experience, but say "Ok, but I see what you are trying to get across." And someone else...perhaps someone just too uncomfortable with imprecision...may say "Nope, sorry, don't get it. Put it in numbers please!"
So at one point it becomes a "you can lead a horse to water...." scenario. Some people will not understand, or will refuse to really try to understand, what one is trying to put in to language. Wuddyagonnado? Ok, you reject the language...fair enough I won't direct it at you, I'll just communicate with others who understand it, or who want to understand.
I don't see any problem if, regarding audio, an individual wants to reject imprecise language for his own use, and look to quantified information. The issue comes when such folks use their own rejection as some blanket condemnation, as if it's of no use to ANYONE (and, often, use this to disparage those who accept the use of subjective description even in time when measurements are not given).
As I've pointed out many times, if some people on this site were truly consistent with their allergy to and rejection of imprecise subjective descriptions, we in my business literally could not work with such people. Thanfully, people are not really consistent with this rejection: they actually use and comprehend subjective, imprecise language every day. We don't always need measurements or glossaries to put together words in different ways, use analogies, build impressions in someone else's mind to communicate. I mean it's possible some here actually try to read fiction books and find it impossible to understand what the author is depicting, but I suspect that's generally not the case ;-)