You could describe it as bad language. Two physics examples. A classic momentum problem where a moving railroad car "acts on" a stationary car making the cars

You could describe it as bad language. Two physics examples. A classic momentum problem where a moving railroad car "acts on" a stationary car making the cars couple and move together, slower. There's no ambiguity with language like "acts on". I'm sure a very angry physicist could get very unhappy about the finer details of "acts upon" in that context but mostly people are pretty tolerant of it. But what, is acting on what, in a classic quantum mechanics double slit experiment? Is one slit acting on the other? I mean, you can't even define the wave/particle as a wave or a particle much less what the whatever it is, is acting on. A physicist sees it where a wave/particle is interacting with a system of slits sounds pretty suspect to a non-STEM person even if it is the weird truth. Or truthier than some other interpretations. So given the two examples what does "acts on" mean in a physicist sense across all physics problems? Keeping in mind that the intelligent design people say things like "God acts on the earth via miracles" now how does that statement fit in with the two physics thought experiments on the topic of "acts on"?