[ghswa]

I don't think that's particularly wishful thinking, however, your alternative phrasing could be seen as equally, if not more, leading.

When quizzed on the behaviour of a C program I would expect a careful and experienced C programmer to consider the behaviour described by the standard (which standard?); unspecified and implementation defined behaviours; and deviations from the standard in both the compiler and the environment. Often I'd expect the answer to be "it depends".

[Retra]

I think, once you unanimously conclude that something should not be done, that people don't really care _why_ it shouldn't be done until someone tries to suggest you should do it.

For example, we know not to dereference null pointers. It is pretty much never correct to do so, and it's hard to imagine otherwise. What does it matter what C says should happen when you do it? You're never going to intentionally do it, so it becomes an incongruous hypothetical. Like "what would happen if you were never born?" The answer is useless because the question is inherently flawed.