Several years ago, when I was working on a master's degree in library science, I had to take a class in cataloging even though I didn't intend to become a cataloger. Rather than a final exam, the culmination of the class was for each student to create a "faceted - analytico-synthetic" classification system, which is essentially a list of each individual term used in a given subject arranged in a mutually-exclusive, hierarchical taxonomy. We could select any subject we wanted and so I selected "firearms". Within a few minutes, I realized I had selected too broadly, so I shortened it to "handguns", but even there it was difficult to arrange each and every term associated with "handguns" in a mutually-exclusive, hierarchical taxonomy. By the time I had completed the project, I had well over 3,000 different terms and had concluded that it was the most boring, tedious, frustrating thing I'd ever done, including trying to reload .25 acp. The prof. wasn't too thrilled with the topic, but she had approved it beforehand, so she really couldn't complain too much. At the end, she gave me an "A" for the class. The final printout was well over 250 pages and I had become so frustrated by it that I didn't even bother to keep a copy. Then a short time after that I discoverd that SAAMI already had done pretty much the same thing! Yes, some folks are more well-versed on terminology than others, but as long as we can figure out what the other person means, it's all pretty much a wash to me. Yes, terms do matter, especially with regard to firearms. There's that old phrase "it's not rocket science;" well, with regard to firearms, it realy is rocket science because you have what amounts to a small rocket laucher (admittedly "rocket" not the proper term here!) in your hand that can easily kill somebody if you don't know what you're talking about or doing. When I visit a store today, for example, and I see a person asking for Winchester .351 ammunition and the clerk says "there's no such thing, you must want .357 mag. ammo," and he sells them a whole case of non-returnable merchandise, I get concerned. Such willful ignorance and stupidity is not only dangerous, it reflects poorly on the credibility of everyone involved in the industry, the sports and collecting. The key is a willingness to learn and increase your understanding. For example, years ago I had one customer who would come into the store every so often just to see if we had any new "Schmidt and Westerns" and another fellow wanted to see one of them new "Gee-Locks". I didn't laugh at them, but rather patiently and carefully tried to explain the importance of using the proper terms. Unfortunately, I failed to get through to either of them.
