Look, this isn't a matter of "agreeing on the terminology." I know and use the correct terminology, but I don't get bent out of shape if the person I'm talking to doesn't know it. Especially when their mistake is obvious and I can correct for it in my head. I don't see how it is "toxic" to be lenient when talking to non-specialists who misuse terminology.
By and large -- and, hey, you'll think this statement is toxic -- people who spend a lot of time worrying about whether something is called a "percent" or a "percentage point", outside the context of a classroom, do not know what they're talking about and have no business teaching anyone how to interpret statistics. Sometimes a change from 10% to 12% matters a lot. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it would matter a lot, but is estimated so imprecisely as to be indistinguishable from noise. Sometimes it is measured very precisely but is meaningless. I could go on. This context-dependence is true whether you call it a percent, a percentage point, or just a "change."
Most smart people understand this regardless of their statistical training. But then they read that, no, what really matters is what people call the change, and then they either 1) conclude that statisticians are pedantic morons who should be ignored and/or 2) psych themselves out and doubt their instincts and wind up worrying about trivial, trivial shit.
Communication is important, but not the way you claim. It is important that specialists (be they statisticians, programmers, whatever) be able to explain things to clients/nonspecialists. It is also important that the specialists be able to interpret what the clients/nonspecialists want to understand and do. The burden falls entirely on the specialist, and any guide that spends any amount of effort to get nonspecialists to use the "correct" terminology is misguided and wasted at best. Which is what I meant by the "toxic" statement, "but if the other person calls it the wrong thing, I don't really care."
