Words pack meaning, subtle and otherwise, as journalists – and some City Council members – know.

Did Meghan Sahli-Wells insult users of airbnb facilities by calling them transients?

At the City Council meeting two weeks ago, three speakers accused the Councilwoman of offending their guests by plastering them with the intensely derogatory label.

Typically, transient characterizes homeless, hopeless types, bums, not anyone you would purposely associate with – as 99 percent of America knows.

Each time the charge was leveled by a new speaker, Ms. Sahli-Wells scootched about in her dais seat. She also slightly switched her head to the right, glaring in the same direction each time.

Fed up after the third charge, the Councilwoman – normally solicitous of community opinion (possibly because they usually agree with her) –harrumphed that she was innocent.

“I need to clarify,” she finally said.

“Nobody is insulting anybody.”

Ms. Sahli-Wells explained that, uh, she was alluding to the transit occupancy tax that commonly is charged to hotel and motel guests.

I guess that is like calling a resident who pays a garbage tax garbage.

Consulting the regionally published Handy Dictionary for Rightists and Wrongists, we learn that a certain mini-stroke is known as a transient ischemic attack, TIA, “a drooping on one side of the face.”

In Missouri, my favorite Downtown businesswoman just discovered, there is a transient employer tax. We will let that lie and return to Ms. Sahli-Wells.

After defending herself by sort of explaining she was talking about the transient occupancy tax, she descended into scold mode.

Narrowing her eyes and repeating her glare, Ms. Sahli-Wells warned her critics, “Don’t misinterpret a technical term.”

Plainly it is open to interpretation as to who was guilty of misinterpreting.