No, it's precisely the opposite. The issue is exactly that recipe quotes frequently write "caramelized" when they mean "browned."
Yes, there is a technical definition of "caramelized." No, not every recipe writer uses this definition.
Look, when a recipe says "caramelize the onions for ten minutes" then there is something wrong, right? It's either the time or the word. Why does everyone learn the "true" definition of "caramelize" and then start assuming that the author must have used the right word and the wrong time, and that what they actually want you to do is sit there tending to onions for 45 minutes?
The VAST majority of recipes, particularly Italian or French, neither require nor want caramelized onions. Unless it's a recipe like French Onion Soup, the vast majority of such recipes want softened or browned onions. Take this from someone who has cooked in Italy and France for nearly 35 years.
“Exponentially more”, “decimate”, and “increased by 200% [to mean doubled]” are also standard terms which are used in a variety of contexts, often (usually?) incorrectly as compared to their actual definition.
If I'm a Roman general, and I have two captains, each with 1,000 soldiers, and I tell them their troops lacked discipline in the last battle, and I order them to decimate their troops, and one of them comes back with 100 soldiers and the other comes back with 900 soldiers, I am going to have a long conversation with them about how words have meanings.
If I'm a chef, and I have two line cooks, each with an onion, and I tell them that their onions will need to be prepared for French onion soup, and I order them to caramelize their onion, and one comes back in 10 minutes and the other comes back in 45 minutes, I am going to have a long conversation with them about how words having meanings.
This isn't a random context, this is the context where the term "caramelize" is technical jargon.
That’s exactly my point. Far more cookbooks and subscriptions can be sold to “people who cook” than to “professional chefs who rigorously and precisely follow the literal definition of terms which once had a specific meaning and now colloquially encompass a much broader range of meaning”.
(Imprecise language bugs the hell out me as well, but it seems like it’s easier for me to bend than to attempt to fix all the humans.)
I can be mowing my lawn when it's 110F outside and say, "Gosh, I'm boiling." But if a recipe tells me to "boil" something, and it means anything other than put it in 212F water with heat applied in such a way that the water is bubbling, then the recipe is a shitty recipe, and I will diagnose the author with a confusion of the mind. The fact that the term now encompasses a much broader range of meaning in other contexts is completely irrelevant: I am not in those other contexts, in this context, it is a word with a very specific meaning.
The Slate article and this very HN discussion (broadly, not this sub-thread) are evidence that the phrase “caramelized onions” does not appear to have a singular, very specific meaning in this context. If it did, cookbooks wouldn’t make the claim and the Slate article and this discussion wouldn’t exist.
> to “people who cook” than to “professional chefs
You have a point here, there is a "context collapse" happening, when this definition is necessarily precise for professional chefs, and less so for "people who cook to eat".
However such recipe books typically claim to bring some of the professional techniques and results to the home cook, and as such are sowing confusion if they encourage "semantic drift"
No, ‘caramelized onions’ is a standard term. The issue is not one of confusion.