Assault?

[DrFaroohk]

Wow, who knew that telling someone they need to learn how to speak english was considered "Assault".

[Boozy]

What's the context?

[DrFaroohk]

Does there have to be a context? Assault means either an unwanted touch or in some jurisdictions, the threat of said touch. Anyway, it was someone I know posting ads for his bar on myspace bulletins and I happened to comment that they looked like a six year old wrote them and he should learn english.

[katie kaboom]

Well I suppose it could be considered verbal assault.

[blas87]

Nah, in that case, it's constructive criticism.

[katie kaboom]

hmm, I don't know. I googled verbal assault and this is what I found;


Verbal Assault
The abuser tends to verbally assault their victim by calling names, degrading, screaming, threatening, criticizing, berating and humiliating. They will center their victim out in front of family and friends by taking small personality flaws and embellishing them to the extreme. They make snide remarks and use sarcasm to erode the victim’s sense of self-worth and self confidence. Making the victim look bad in front of others is an attempt to isolate the victim and keep them at their mercy.

I think there's probably a fine line between constructive criticism and verbal assault. And not everyone will percieve them the same way.

[blas87]

Most likely so.

In that case, there are hundreds of people from my childhood to this very day that I could have charged with verbal assault.

[katie kaboom]

In that case, there are hundreds of people from my childhood to this very day that I could have charged with verbal assault.

I feel the same way about most of the people I went to middle school with. That was the toughest time of my young life. Kids are way too cruel.

[blas87]

They sure are. Sometimes teachers and parents are even more cruel when they pretend to not hear the things that go on.

[powerboy]

Does there have to be a context? Assault means either an unwanted touch or in some jurisdictions, the threat of said touch. Anyway, it was someone I know posting ads for his bar on myspace bulletins and I happened to comment that they looked like a six year old wrote them and he should learn english.

It is all in how they take it. To some it is constructive criticism and others it could be verbal assault.

I feel the same way about most of the people I went to middle school with. That was the toughest time of my young life. Kids are way too cruel.

Middle school was the worst for me. All because I was a fat kid.

[DrFaroohk]

Just curious, if there's any legal eagle types in here, does anyone know what type of statement does constitute a threatening statement? I.e. I know that saying "I am going to inflict bodily harm upon you" does, but what about something like "You better watch out, man" or even something like "I wouldn't do that if I were you" in a menacing tone? What about threats of other things, such as "I'll sue you" or something?

[Slytovhand]

That's where I was about to take it, DrF.

While google definitions might give that as a def'n for assault, it's rather broad for a legal definition (and, of course, it matters mightily on where this 'assault charge' would be heard or imposed).

[fireheart17]

Re the constructive criticism vs. verbal assault debate.

To me, constructive criticism has usually consisted partially in tone, partially in what actually gets said. Something like "you need to work on <whatever>" to me, that's constructive. Even if it's something horrid like "you need to work on your sex appeal because you're ugly." (Just an example). Basically, there's an element of finality in there-the person will get there eventually.

Verbal assault on the other hand, now that to me, is pretty much just "you're never going to be good at..." or basically sentences that imply the person will always be like that.

The original context "you need to learn to speak English" to me, falls into both ways. If the person genuinely cannot spell to save their life BUT has had difficulty with English in the past ie. not their first language, dyslexia etc. that's constructive criticism. IF someone's being deliberate in their spelling however...

[DrFaroohk]

Its mostly that the guy who owns the place is from somewhere far away, I have no idea where, but he's got some usual misteps like "Come and making fun at bar all this night!" He also owns a grocery store and makes his own little signs around the store, with similar things. "Sale of grape jelly! Halfing of price!" It just reminds me what a control freak he is, he won't even let someone else write his ads for him.

[Rubystars]

It sounds like it's really fun to read those signs. I once went out in the country and saw a sign that said "Potatoe salad". There's another sign that was up in an HEB on one of the aisles that said "Hot Coco" That one irritated me more because it was a permanent sign.