No, as mentioned I am not suggesting using "link" to mean "symlink". I am suggesting being aware that not everyone (speaker or listener) will have the word "lin

No, as mentioned I am not suggesting using "link" to mean "symlink". I am suggesting being aware that not everyone (speaker or listener) will have the word "link" mapped unambiguously to "hardlink", and that if you hear "hardlink" it's likely the speaker means "hardlink", while if you hear "link" you can't be quite as sure. In other words: I am advocating against deleting error-correcting bits from language, because language is a noisy channel and error-correcting bits help reduce errors.