The whole point of the post you were replying to is that arguing about what the word "functional" means is beside the point. To many people there is a categoris

The whole point of the post you were replying to is that arguing about what the word "functional" means is beside the point. To many people there is a categorisation of languages to which Haskell and Scala more strongly conform than Lisp and Erlang. What that category is called is of secondary importance to the discussion. Semantic arguments are tiresome, and I wish more people would focus on the content of the discussion, instead of arguing about how it might better have been conveyed. Sometimes people misunderstand the commonly accepted meanings of terms, and it's worth correcting them. But if people start arguing about terminology, then it's better to just define terms and move on, since there's clearly not a consensus worth teaching anyone.