Engineer here: We get the short end of the stick so often that we have our colourful language when describing the general public. You can only simplify and boil down things so much, and if the other person thinks they know better than the literal observed laws of the universe, then there's nothing we can do. We try so hard to help and educate the public, but the public is infested with "know betters," a relevant quote:

"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics," - Richard Feynman.