Arguments devolve on threads to wordsmithing contests


Why is it that so many well-intentioned threads devolve into wordsmithing contests? Is it necessary to argue about the meaning of posts when the language thereof is reasonably clear on its face?
128x128celander
Do the discussions devolve or do they evolve?

I suspect what happens to them is alternating versions of osmosis and capillary action, each in inverse intensity and magnitude to the other. But I could be wrong.
“>>>>Correction. Everyone has his own field, after all.”

Geoff single-handedly wiped the female and “other” genders out of the lexicon of candidates for possessive pronouns.
"In any dispute, the intensity of the feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake" -Wallace Sayre

(mike drop.....)