I still subscribe to the definition of the words "debit" and "credit" that I learned in my 100-level accounting class: A debit is an entry in the left column of the journal, a credit is an entry in the right column. The meanings "gain" and "loss" only related to debit and credit when you're talking about the "normal balance" of a specific type of an account (an example: a debit to a revenue account represents realized revenue). Without the context of a specific type of account the words debit and credit only refer to the placement of the transaction in a journal.
