If the Buddha taught 500 lay people how to easily attain first jhana, you'd think he'd mention it if vitakka meant something totally new

A friend wrote this to me:

...where a word is commonly
understood to mean x, then where it is used in a special case to mean y,
that change of meaning must be explained each time.

There is no way Anathapindika could know what the Buddha meant with
regard to v & V (vitakka and vicara)  when he spoke of A. easily attaining the jhanas, without
this having been explained to him first. Virtually every exposition of
the method for attaining the jhanas (to laymen at least) would need this
explained.

This is especially the case where we have someone as careful of his
teaching methods as was Gotama. "Well taught by me is Dhamma".

It is always dangerous to speak of what another person was thinking, but
it is just completely unreasonable to think that the Buddha would have
been as neglectful as to assume people would know when to use meaning
one and when to use meaning two without the reasons being explained at
least once ... and where we have the situation where there was no
writing and suttas were given to both groups and individuals ... each time.