It's simply a ratio of volumes of three separate ingredients; how is that meaningless?
Bringing dilution factors into the discussion (which I believe is what you are referring to) only adds another layer of potential (and needless) confusion.
I will illustrate the difference by giving you another typical real-world example, such as a working synthetic chemist uses every day. If a prep calls for the use of a 1:2 mixture of methanol:ethyl acetate, that ALWAYS refers to a ratio of the two different solvents, NOT a dilution factor of one into the other.
So, let's say for the sake of discussion we use 10 mL methanol and 20 mL ethyl acetate, making a mixture comprising 33% methanol by volume. If on the other hand we used 10 mL methanol and diluted it to 20 mL with ethyl acetate (i.e. adding 10 mL), we would have a mixture comprising 50% methanol by volume. These end results are totally different.
To reassure people that I'm not pulling this stuff out of thin air: I have two degrees in chemistry (including a PhD), and I work in the field of synthetic organic chemistry & medicinal chemistry for a living.