Reliability engineers rely on using 'words' to convey meaning. We come up with 'common' words and 'common' definitions so that we don't need to explain the concept of each term we use. When I say 'failure mode' I want the person I am talking to to know what a 'failure mode' is. But unfortunately, this rarely happens. There are so many competing definitions out there, and too many time-wasting arguments over this confusion. How can we avoid this?