If you take a design with only a couple elements, and add a new one under someone's instructions, it's not hard to make it look like something else. It's definitely a stretch to say it already has a meaning. A circle with a line down the middle doesn't mean anything, but you can outline the bottom quarter slice and make it a peace sign. Or rotate it to make a no sign. Or take an equilateral triangle and overlap another rotated and it becomes a star of david.
"I think this has a meaning as-is because of associations with this shape" is different from "this would have a meaning if you changed xyz, therefore it already has a meaning". I think the former makes a lot more sense than the latter. And your argument above was the latter.
