«وَلَا شَكَّ أَنَّ الْأَوْلَى إِيرَادُ الْحَدِيثِ بِأَلْفَاظِهِ دُونَ التَّصَرُّفِ فِيهِ»
Undoubtedly, the preferable course is to transmit the hadith in its own wording without verbal alteration.
This distinguishes permission from preference. A scholar may recognize a limited concession for competent narration by meaning while still holding that exact transmission is more secure and preferable.
Wording itself can carry shades of meaning not fully reproduced by apparently equivalent alternatives. Preserving the actual text allows later hadith critics, jurists, and language scholars to examine those features independently. A paraphrase may convey the central point without preserving every element open to future analysis.