Wire ampacity depends on a lot of things: gauge/AWG of course, but also temperature, run length, conduit size and filling factor, insulation type (and resulting thermals), blah blah blah, and sometime people come to different conclusions on what the "right" wire is. That shorthand above could just be pointing to a more complex problem, or even a dispute over how to read the code! Another possibility is that they ran out of the "right" wire" and thought they could sneak by with the "wrong" wire. Heck the wire they used could even be too BIG! Stuff happens, different inspectors interpret the code differently, et cetera.