I've made the case before that the whole "card-shaped thing/object" is completely pointless. Call them cards; that's what they are.
This is all that matters:
(1) Buying an Event is not buying a card. (You don't buy the Event card, you buy the effect - or Event.)
All the following is a result of (1):
(2) The price on the Event card is not for buying the card.
(3) "When you buy a card" can't refer to Events.
(4) Cost-reducers can't reduce the cost of Events.
It's still not wrong to talk about Event cards as "Events", just like we talk about Action cards as "Actions".
Event cards are called Event cards in the rulebook. "Event cards" are also part of the setup rules.
When we talk about Kingdom cards, Events, Landmarks and other cards that are included in the game, we are talking about them as cards. So we mean Event cards (and Landmark cards etc). These cards can be shuffled and can be included in the game. Save is an Event card that can be included in a game, for instance if we draw that card from the shuffled pile of cards during setup. But when you buy Save, you buy the Event, not the Event card. When we talk about what's included in an expansion, it's pointless to talk about actual cards as "card-shaped objects".