Ted,
I didn't know that about Ki Society, thanks for the information.

I actually came across the 'waterhose' or 'tube' analogy during a seminar from Kevin Blok, Yoshinkan, 6th Dan. But I didn't intend my point to be specific to those phrases, just generally that using 'higher level' language is useful and appropriate, regardless of the fact that it might be possible to describe something at a lower level.