Do layperson say "vertical stabilizer"? Most of them just say tail

I'm aware of that but OP specifically used the term "vertical stabliizer", which excludes fuselage-mounted tail engines.

https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11d3gw1/eli5_why_are_some_airplane_jet_engines_under_the/ja6wm82/

That's outside the scope of the question asked by the OP. They asked about wing mounted and vertical stabilizer mounted engines.

Don't complain to me about assumptions you made about the OP

They very clearly said vertical stabilizer

I answered how quantity is related to placement. You can't have 3 engines and have all of them under the wings, they wouldn't be balanced.

There hasn't been a model designed with an engine on the vertical stabilizer since like the 70s/80s.

As for why, it has to do with reliability and the ability to make an emergency landing if 1 engine fails. Modern jet engines are reliable enough that only 2 of them are needed for the vast majority of airline flights. In the past, 3-engine or 4-engine designs would be used for airline routes that fly over oceans or over isolated areas where the nearest available airport in case of emergency is very far away. For further information about this, search for "ETOPS" (which is what the regulation is called). "4 engines 4 long haul" was also a phrase used in the past by certain airlines which preferred flying 4-engine planes, and by Airbus to market the A340 against competitors such as the Boeing 777.

And of course, with a 3-engine design, the only place to mount the center engine and still be balanced, is the vertical stabilizer.

I'm pretty sure TSA doesn't keep records of airline schedules or things like that. So they wouldn't know if you are at the "wrong" terminal. All they know is if the boarding pass is valid or not.

Also, maybe request to your city or whoever the airport authority is, that they should consider an airport design that doesn't have "wrong terminals". At a lot of modern airports it doesn't matter what TSA checkpoint you go through because all the gates are connected behind security anyway. Such as Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, etc

The idea is that if the journalist violated the "off the record" request from the source, then people who could be used as sources would stop talking to that journalist. Obviously, sometimes there may be a reason for the journalist to violate it anyway.