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>The term 'painkiller' is reserved for strong pain relief

Having claimed it was cultural. It have been helpful of you indicated which culture you felt this applied to.

In UK I'd say painkillers includes ibuprofen and paracetamol. I suppose with ibuprofen it's also referred to as an anti-inflammatory. Not sure how else one would refer to paracetamol other than with synonyms (analgesics) or euphemism (pain relief tablet).

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Even in the UK it's not necessarily true. I wouldn't be surprised to hear it used that way, but I don't think my peer group in the UK would ever refer to NSAIDs as anything other than their brand or generic names.

I particularly disagree with the parent comment that calls this click bait. The topic's intrinsically interesting to anybody who'd be lured in by that title; it doesn't need "bait" and we all know NSAIDs exist.

The article's particularly good at citing its references inline, which I very much appreciated. Added this author to my RSS reader in fact.

The title is at the very least ambiguous. I expected an essay on the historic invention of NSAIDs/paracetamol as I also understand painkillers to include NSAIDs.

Paracetamol can be referred to as an antipyretic (fever reducing drug), and it's widely used for that in the same way ibuprofen is used as an anti inflammatory.

ibuprofen is also antipyretic

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