Originally Posted by
bubbashow
Isn't it clear that OP simply wants to argue about semantics? We get a similar post on here about once every 6 months or so.
Yep. Two points to add to what has already been said:
1. It's not whether someone is on the phone or talking to their seatmate, it's the volume and whether they're conscious of their environment. YMMV I guess, but IME people on the phone seem more oblivious to their surroundings since they aren't interacting with said surroundings, and thus have a higher tendency to be loud and annoying.
2. OP seems very interested in drilling down into the letter of the law/policy, just to spite the spirit of those same laws/policies (set aside the fact that if we really want to get into semantics most of these are airline or FAA policies, not laws). If that's the road OP wants to head down, he/she should consider that right or wrong, they were going down a path of challenging crew instructions during a flight, and it seems to me that the policies related to that are very clear.