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I have met so many people who say that they play guitar. Mostly I see that they own guitars, but they do not really play them:

Someone: Yeah, I play the guitar.
Me: Really? Can you play something for me? I want to see!
Someone: Uh... well, I do not actually know how to play anything yet.

Then you do not PLAY the guitar! I own a clarinet myself, but I do not "play" the clarinet. I am not a clarinetist. I do play the violoncello, so I will call myself a 'cellist because I studied it for years and can play it and read music for it and such. I even own a guitar myself, but I can only play a few things (mostly because I used to be a doublebassist as well in school and I know the note positions for guitar and bass). I would not call myself a guitarist though.

It just strikes me as strange. Is this an idiom I do not understand in English? To say that you play the guitar means that you own one? Or are people just always trying to impress each other and fail to deliver when you call them out on it?

Of course I do not mean to make people look like idiots, it is just that when you say you can do something I expect that you are telling the truth, and I merely wanted to see it happen out of earnest interest.

Suddenly I feel like playing my 'cello...