I get what you're saying, but I think this is a side-effect of saving thinking in abstractions. We use abstractions to plug holes to avoid having to drill down

I get what you're saying, but I think this is a side-effect of saving thinking in abstractions. We use abstractions to plug holes to avoid having to drill down on every concept we're exposed to. That can look like a surface-level linguistic understanding, but it's not, it's a surface-level abstraction. It's not arbitrary, it has structure, and when you flesh it out you're fleshing it out with actual abstract structure, not just painting over the gaps with arbitrary language.