Laypeople aren't casual with language. You're not going to hear anyone referring to a theft as a bubble bath. They know what the words mean.
But the law is using the language incorrectly in ways that are guaranteed to cause confusion. This is a problem. The law should be using the language correctly, which it isn't doing now.
The law is defining the language within the law, including the required elements that must be proven in order for the crime to result in a conviction.
The law does not require nor permit you to bring your own dictionary for crimes; they give you the definition for free and require to use theirs. As an example, burglary is defined in
They further go on to define "building" and "habitation" in Penal Code § 30.01.
If you find a dictionary definition that conflicts with the Texas Penal Code's definition of burglary or of a building, guess which one prevails in a criminal proceeding in Texas?
I'm aware of the structure. My comments have said that it is a mistake -- not a logical impossibility, but a bad idea -- to use existing, interchangeable terms for crimes that are legally distinct. This mistake is usually avoided, but in the case of robbery, burglary, and theft, it hasn't been.
For example, imagine that someone gets really drunk, stumbles into your home, collapses on your couch, and soaks it in urine. Hours later, you come home and find him sleeping it off.
Under Texas law, whether this is "burglary" depends on the value of your couch.
Suppose you've got a very fancy couch. It was "burglary". Any local newspaper is free to refer to that guy as having been convicted of burglary (assuming he gets prosecuted). But this is clearly a miscarriage of justice; no one in the world would consider that "burglary", and coverage using that term should be defamatory.
In general, if you seek to define new terms, they should actually be new terms. Redefining terms people already know has downsides, but not upsides.
Much of your argument rests on the claim that those terms are fully interchangeable. Many posters, both native and non-native speakers, have observed that they are not fully interchangeable.
1. I very much still write code myself without an LLM when I need top quality
2. That's why I have an agentic agent as well installed, Qwen 27B, outrageously good, better than sonnet 2 years ago. And it's mine, I can give it confidential info to work with since I own the whole chain. See where I'm going with this?
This site exists because paulg created a webshop in a niche language (Lisp) and got a prototype bought out (and discarded) in the gold rush. No browser internals needed to make a fortune on the platform. Just rapid development of an application with natural monetization, and being in a place to do so way at the beginning.
Jeff Bezos did similar, but he did his own fulfillment and hired out the coding.
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