A tiny principle regarding Commonsense in Linguistics

When there are 2 processes/actions A and B, such that : 

A is an enabler for B, and A wouldn't have any meaning if it wasn’t succeeded by B, then A becomes commonsense.

2 illustrative scenarios - 

a) We say “Switch on the light”, and NOT “press the button of the light”. Pressing the button of the light is process A, and ‘switch on the lights’ is B. Pressing the button is an enabler for switching on the lights, and just pressing the button which is, say, not connected to the lights would be meaningless.

Similarly, we say - "turn to the right", and not "turn the steering to the right".

b) When we say “Go for a swim”, there are 2 actions here - the actual act of swimming which is the one thats really referred to, and the “going” (for the swim) which isn't important. That is why, when we say ‘if you go for a swim, your body will become wet’, it is meant implicitly, by ‘going for the swim’, the actual act of swimming and not the act of ‘going’ (which won't make you wet).

The otherwise case : 

A = having food B = washing hands.

Here, A doesn't satisfy the 2 conditions. That is 1) one does not have food so that he can wash hands and 2) One can have food and not wash hands; that won't make the having of food meaningless. So A isn't commonsense when one talks of B. That is, washing hands doesn't imply that one was having food, commonsensically.

General principle : When there are 2 processes/actions A and B and A does not meet the 2 requirements of the condition statement above, then A is commonsense when B is mentioned. Otherwise, it isn't so.