Colorful language can be entertaining and local jargon interesting to hear. It reminds me of reading Huckleberry Finn or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
In different parts of the county a creek, stream, brook, branch, crick, are all the same thing, and probably many other names for the same thing I haven't heard. How many different names for a pump action shotgun or rifle. Pump, slide action, trombone action, Amish machine gun?
In the part of the south where I live every soft drink is a Coke. It doesn't matter if it has Pepsi, Double Cola, or RC Cola on the bottle, everyone calls it Coke. A large portion of the people here refer to all refrigerators as a "Frigidaire". It might have been made by GE, but it is still a Frigidaire. All adjustable wrenches are "Crescent" wrenches. Even if it was made by Craftsman.
But I do prefer to see things be technically correct. Clip vs magazine is the classic example. They really are 2 distinct, different things. But during WW-2 the 2 terms were used interchangeably so often that the meaning has been forever blurred. It's just a lot easier to say a 1 syllable word than a 3 syllable word. The military is good at shortening things like that. A High Mobility Multi Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) became a Hummer.
It doesn't really bother me if someone uses the word "clip" when they really mean magazine, but if I feel it was a mistake made simply because of a lack of knowledge I will try to tactfully inform them. It is good to know there is a difference.
