Maybe I misunderstand the term?
Or maybe I do? I tend to pay more attention to how I see a word used over how the word is documented (based on how academics have observed the word being used and what they can discern about its origin). But let me check at least one such source:
A pedant is a person who is excessively concerned with formalism, accuracy, and precision, or one who makes an ostentatious and arrogant show of learning.
So "excessively" is part of that definition. If that is typical of other scholarly definitions, then that means "pedantry" will likely be used to indicate the existence of a problem. But you used "excessive" in your own definition which you consider positive. So maybe I misunderstand that word:
Exceeding the usual bounds of something; extravagant; immoderate.
Well, that doesn't convey a requirement of the degree being problematic. Though, the example usage matches my experience of how it is used, that is, being used to indicate a problem:
"I personally consider putting a wide vibrato on a single 16th triplet note at 160 beats per minute rather excessive, nay even stupid."
So, let us concentrate on the point rather than the words. The problem with what I called your "pedantry" is a matter of degree more than of kind. Many of the traits that constitute pedantry are indeed useful in clear communication, at least if they are reduced in degree somewhat.
And, let me be clear that I value your contributions here at PerlMonks and to the wider Perl community. Part of why I am trying to address this topic is that I have some hope of effecting some small betterment of your excellent works.
Sorry, but I don't think it's fine to say that f(@a, @b) has two arguments.
And it is fine for you to never say that. And it is fine for you to point out that such a statement is at least potentially unclear, especially if you don't go all pedantic (such as "an ostentatious and arrogant show") about it.
But it is demonstrated in this thread that your overly strong insistence on that particular stance has interfered not only with your ability to effectively communicate to others, but also interfered with your own ability to understand what is being said, even after significant clarifying discussion.
So you are free to "take a stand". But you are hurting your ability to communicate in both directions by doing so. And I personally find that loss unfortunate.
Perhaps it would help you deal with seeing such statements to realize that "f(@a, @b) has two arguments" is just a slightly shortened way of saying "f(@a, @b) has two argument expressions". And that is simply factually true. Granted, those two argument expressions are also part of the single argument expression that is formed by combining those two via a comma. Making a big deal out of the omission of a single qualifying word is not a great communication strategy. Being unable to understand what is pretty clear to many readers because of your insistence is even worse.
Just because you understand that, lacking any qualifiers, when talking about Perl, "argument" is most accurately used to refer to scalar values, doesn't mean that it is helpful for you to complain if I am talking about Perl and say "the argument you are making is baseless". You probably agree with that. Your insistence on only your approved use of the word "argument" is sometimes not much more useful (and almost as irritating).
The fact that you know that the comma used to separate expressions when passing arguments to Perl subs is no different than other users of the comma operator, doesn't mean that everybody is always keenly aware of that. And you knowing that Perl parses the "actual argument(s)" as just "a single expression", doesn't mean that thinking in terms of passing several arguments to a Perl sub by separating then with commas is an unacceptable mental model. Heck, it is a perfect model in huge numbers of cases and is the mental model used in tons of languages that are significantly similar to Perl and even in the languages that Perl stole its ideas from.
I know from experience that it can be quite frustrating when being taught some subject to get taught a model that you soon learn is factually incorrect (in some ways or for some cases). But I've learned over time that effectively teaching requires being open to multiple mental models. Heck, I've fairly often seen how person X just can't seem to learn subject S from person Y because none of the mental models that Y uses to understand S "work" for X. Yet X can learn S easily from person Z.
Vehemently rejecting a useful and very common but imperfect mental model and its terminology just hinders your communication ability. You (and others) would be much better off if you learned to just fill in some unstated qualifiers so you can get over statements that you interpret as being incorrect. They may well be simply incorrect for how you choose to use the word "argument". But you were not the one choosing.
