To sell short and to sell an existing long position are not the same thing. It's not pedantics, it's vocabulary.
It's pedantics as you KNOW I am telling people to sell their holdings.
I only know what you tell people by reading what you type - I cannot know what you
intend to tell someone unless you express yourself in an understandable way.
How the fuck do you 'sell a long position'? You either HOLD a long position or you don't. You cannot SELL a long position. ha ha ha you f-ed up at your own little game. Moron.
A little vocabulary lesson seems to be in order:
To sell a long position is to sell shares of a security you already own.
To sell "short" is to borrow shares (usually from a broker) for the purposes of selling what you have not yet paid for.
I hope that makes it clearer for you. I can link you to the motley fool if you'd like, they have lots of articles for do-it-yourself-at-home investors that might be helpful.