> If people like me, in perpetual MST, struggle to determine what offset is meant by "EST" then it's imprecise and misleading. We cannot merely say it's "descriptivist" and roll with it.
We can though. Say EST out loud like it's a single word. It sounds like "east," as in "eastern." Next, pronounce all three letters: E S T. It still sounds like "east." This is why people use EST when they mean eastern. They aren't talking about daylight or standard time, they're talking about the time in New York.
Okay then, genius! Is it UTC-5, or UTC-4! Quick, calculate this across the cusp of Halloween and November 1st! Remember, you live in a region that never observes or switches to DST, so you have no idea when the switch actually happens!
I answered lol, it's "the same time as it is in New York." This isn't hard to understand unless you're a machine with very rigid and prescribed rules I guess. It's 11:51am where I live, and I know by instinct, having lived here my whole life, that New York is one hour ahead of me, Denver is one hour behind me, and LA is two hours behind me. Ergo, it's 12:51pm EST.
I suppose if I lived in a timezone where we don't switch between daylight and standard time twice a year I might have to rub two of my braincells together to remember if they "spring ahead" or "fall back" at the moment, but the entropy generated by that extra bit of recall seems trivial.
We can though. Say EST out loud like it's a single word. It sounds like "east," as in "eastern." Next, pronounce all three letters: E S T. It still sounds like "east." This is why people use EST when they mean eastern. They aren't talking about daylight or standard time, they're talking about the time in New York.