Hhar1: Why not call them “ideas”? I mean, you have taken a perfectly good word: “idea”, and translated it into something that you say you can’t be sure of the composition of and that is entirely subjective. A great gain! SCIENCE! LOL!

Sal2: Because the term meme indicates things that the term idea does not. Replicating between minds by means of communication, for one thing. And by means of other action, also. Is it an idea when you open a Zippo lighter with a snap of your fingers? Also, memes are also replicated in artifacts. Bibles and Qurans can be described as physically instantiated memeplexes, but as ideas?

The fact is that when something becomes the object of focused study, a specialized vocabulary develops as a means to exclude the baggage that might be otherwise insinuated by the connotations found in common discourse. Phenomenology did this, Hermeneutics did this. Semiotics did this. Why should memetics be any different?