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A better way to think about it is that all letters in the musical alphabet are represented in a musical scale. Some are sharp or flat

D major: D E F♯ G A B C♯

D minor: D E F G A B♭ C

Db major: D♭ E♭ F G♭ A♭ B♭ C

Db minor: D♭ E♭ F♭ G♭ A♭ B♭♭ C♭

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Sure, I knew what they meant. But if they are sloppy with their terminology on the knucklehead stuff then it doesn’t bode well for the esoteric stuff to follow.

My point was not to showcase my confusion, rather to reinforce the fact that music theory texts are just generally low quality, and music theory as a field seems to be okay with that.

but it doesnt say that. you paraphrased the book in a way that makes it look sloppy but it was your paraphrased version which is sloppy. if you read through the book when it defines this stuff, it introduces accidentals as "characters that can be placed before notes to raise or lower them" and then in the section on the major scale it says "All major scales use the notes of the musical alphabet in order; no notes are skipped and no notes occur twice." i dont think this is ambiguous

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