Maybe its an avoidance of identity with these things? Typically people regard things that they claim are part of their identity as more fixed than other things.
Alternatively, he could be following the advice of Korzybski, in Science and Sanity en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski
It's the first and part of the second. I've never heard of Korzybski but I arrived at a similar idea that makes physics easier to grasp. I prefer to say gravity is well modeled as curvature of a manifold instead of saying gravity is a bending of spacetime. I also prefer to say someone is acting foolish than to say they are foolish. Never realized they could be connected as part of the same general philosophy. Thanks.
It's very easy to slip but I've gotten better in time.
Alternatively, he could be following the advice of Korzybski, in Science and Sanity en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski