Does Colonel Barnes? If not, he is just repeating a word he has learned to say. Rather like some people today who have learned to say "entanglement", or "signalling", or "evolution", or...
Except in this case he's actually saying 'gravity' in the right context, and besides, it's not expected of people in general to know Newton's laws (or general relativity, etc) to know basically how gravity works.
Although I'd like to know what his answer was to the last question...
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: