Muscle, fat, density, weight, mass...oh my!

There are few things more annoying on the MFP boards than the "a pound weighs the same as a pound" correction (incomplete as it may be!). No one is actually confused on that point. Everyone knows what muscle weighs more than fat means, and it is correct. That we are talking about same volumes is implied. It would obviously make no sense (and be idiotic) for someone to say that a lb of muscle weights more than a lb of fat, so why assume that someone means that or is saying that. It's basically insulting or suggests that it's the person doing the correcting who doesn't understand how dumb that is, in that he or she thinks someone could actually be misunderstanding that. (Now, it's possible I'm overestimating the average intelligence of people, I've done that before, but in the absence of evidence of such vast stupidity, I think it's rude to assume it.) Similarly, a lb of me weighs the same as a lb of my sister, but it's still accurate to say that she weighs less than me. Also, helium and air, feathers and iron, etc.

What is especially annoying about the pedantic and unnecessary "no, a lb equals a lb" correction is that is misses the actual reason why the person explaining that muscle weighs more than fat is probably wrong. Not because muscle and fat are equal in weight (they are not, given the unstated understood aspects of the statement), but because that fact is almost certainly irrelevant to what is being discussed. The statement is typically made when someone is not losing weight and someone else says "maybe you gained muscle, muscle weighs more...." What is wrong with that statement is not that a lb = a lb -- what would that have to do with anything? -- but that there is no earthly reason to think that the person gained lbs of muscle in the short period of time that is usually being discussed, while eating at a deficit and often basically just doing some light cardio.

On the other hand, when people say that you can look better while being at the same or even a higher weight if you recomp and decrease your body fat percentage, because muscle weighs more than fat, they are quite correct.

Look, my accountant-y brain can appreciate your compulsion to ensure that people understand the science behind what they are talking about. I would love if people didn't get all glassy eyed and sleepy when I crooned about debits and credits and assets and liabilities. (Heck, I would love it if people just knew their basic times tables.) But at a certain point we have to understand that it's not going to happen and there's no point in fixating on it. The majority of people understand the very basic idea that one pound of fat is larger in physical dimensions than is a pound of muscle and that's the bottom line. After that, be like Elsa and

Hey, you put it out there, and some people will find it interesting and informative. I think most of us do know what is meant in casual conversation, and most of us overlook little errors in exactitude most of the time (and then go and ***** about it somewhere else).

I look at it this way: if you speak or write in a completely precise way all of the time, someone is going to say that you're pedantic or pretentious, and if you do not, then someone is going to say that you're wrong. So, pretty much damned if you do and damned if you don't. And yet we somehow muddle along understanding enough of each others' thoughts to live in communal societies. So language is more or less doing its job.

Yay- another person giving engineers a bad reputation. As if people don't already find us socially awkward and abrasive enough.
(That last sentence had horrible grammar, but I don't feel like fixing it because I'm an engineer and therefore far superior to everyone, anyway.)

This^, and because I have dated one for the last 5 years and one for 3 years before that, (yes I did call them one's), I just want to confirm most of the time they are very socially awkward and (at least the men versions) need to find ways of being self important (this post). Trying to understand is like banging your head on the wall!

Sincerely, I don't know if it's really important.

Personally, I think you and I are very similar in that my natural tendency is to make precise distinctions in terminology and - truth be told - there's a dark corner of my brain that screams for people to be more precise in their language, grammar, and spelling. But at the end of the day, it's a fitness forum - we're not splitting atoms or writing essays here.

On these boards, the most common 'pet peeve' items don't even register on my radar anymore - I know what someone means when they ask how to 'loose' weight or when they talk of muscle 'weighing' more than fat. And that's good enough for me. I try to focus more on the idea being conveyed since (for me, at least) a well reasoned thought expressed somewhat inarticulately still trumps precisely stated BS.

Just offering some perspective.

Don't get me started on simple misunderstandings people have with quantum mechanics or with thermodynamics.

im actually curious about these. please elaborate. i dont know anyone who has any misconceptions about quantum mechanics, mostly because the only people who actually know ANYTHING about the subject have studied it at a university level

You're pinning a lot on that engineer business.

I'm an engineer.

You're coming off as arrogant and abrasive. You're arguing something that does not need arguing, as it's already been done before.