TwoBear wrote:
For me, a beard implies intentionality... It's a beard when and if the grower intends it to be. Just skipping shaving for a few days does not make it a beard unless it was intentional. If, after a few days, the guy thinks "well, I guess I need to shave," then that is not a beard. On the other hand, if he maintains it, then I would call it a beard.

Does that make any sense?

I agree completly with this statement.  If you want to have that 5 o'clock shadow look, and keep it maintained that is a beard.  Shaving every Sunday does not mean you are growing a beard during the week.  That just means you are being lazy.
Personally, if I trim my beard any shorter than a half inch, I don't think it counts as a bead anymore, and I am back in the "growing a beard" phase.

"How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them! ... But He adorned man like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him as an attribute of manhood, with a hairy chest—a sign of strength and rule." St. Clement of Alexandria, 2.275

My Beard