Position: Just What Does it Mean?

In the past, it was perfectly satisfactory for navigators to operate with little regard for the exact meaning of the terms, such as latitude and longitude, or even height, that they used to describe where they were. Latitude was latitude and longitude was longitude and that was the end of the matter. Of course, the positioning methods employed and the objectives of the positioning activity itself were usually so approximate that exact definitions were not important anyway, and no difficulties arose.