Terminology: "reference" versus "pointer"

[Rustom Mody]

On Saturday, September 12, 2015 at 11:57:01 AM UTC+5:30, Ben Finney wrote:
> Random832 writes:
> 
> > Ben Finney writes:
> > > The reference value is inaccessible to the program, it can only be
> > > used to get at the referenced object.
> >
> > What does it mean to access something, if not to do some operation on
> > it? Getting the referenced object is the operation you can do with it.
> 
> You've clearly committed to some ontology that just doesn't match the
> Python data model.

How about lay-English ontology in which "point to" and "refer to" are fairly
synonymous?