system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is there a response to people who say "it's all just semantics"?

Often in debate it seems people try to reduce everything to a matter of definition alone.  The idea seems to be that, nobody actually disagrees, but instead just define things differently and these definitions are the source of all dispute.

Has anyone written about this phenomenon?  I find it a tad annoying when I feel a debate has had real substance, but others deflate it to one of just definition.  Especially when people try to basically relativize definition, as though all definitions are equally good and there's no use trying to work out whether one might be preferred and why.
gpt
I think you're asking about two different things here. As for when someone alleges that a distinction is merely semantic, the relevant objection would be to point out a substantive difference concerning the matter at hand. As for when someone dismisses a matter on the grounds that it just depends what definition we adopt, usually what needs to be clarified is that the question of which definition we adopt is the substantive matter at hand, or significantly implicated in it.