Interesting that the verb shifts from “to be” to “to feel.” On purpose? Can she be(VERB) insulted?
I said “rabbit hole logic,” not “sticks and stones” logic. And if you can claim that I insulted him without him being insulted, Alice is calling for you.
Gosh. Please read more carefully. This is your second mistake. I never said he was not worth the time.
An insult that is not insulting. Can you really not see the contradiction? I’ll say it again. If I am not insulted, there was no insult, unless you are claiming that certain words have a meaning that I am forced to accept.
Does flattery work this way? If I find large noses attractive,and compliment you on yours, even though it is a source of shame to you, are you flattered? Or insulted? Suppose it was in front of a group of people you were hoping to impress? Do you thank me for the compliment, or berate me for the insult?
If murdering, coked up, monkey-fucking asshole doesn’t insult me, then I have not been insulted, and there has been no insult.
If an insult is only an insult if the target feels insulted by it, how would it be possible to insult the office of the president? An institution doesn’t have feelings, after all.
Yes in both cases. In fact, I don’t see a significant distinction between my hypothetical and yours. They’re effectively the same scenario, except that I used a celebrity name, and you didn’t.
But it’s not at all. One can recognize an intent to insult, without actually caring enough about the person to feel insulted. If George Bush logged on to the SDMB and read my last post, he’s certainly see that I was trying to insult him. But he’s the president of the free world, and I’m some anonymous jerk on the internet. He’s not going to give a shit what I think about him. He’s heard worse said about him from people who actually matter. He’ll recognize that I was trying to insult him, he’ll be insulted (as the target of a transitive verb) but he won’t be insulted (as the target of the adverb).
Because it’s also possible to insult someone inadvertently. The problem is, we use the word “insult” to mean too many things. It’s both the action, and the result of the action. If I insult you succesfully, you feel insulted. If I punch you successfully, you feel bruised. If I punch you unsuccesfully, I’ve still thrown a punch, but you don’t feel bruised. If I insult you unsuccesfully, I’ve still said an insult, but you don’t feel insulted. On the other hand, if I say something that I think is innocuous, but you take personally, even though what I said wasn’t an insult, you still feel insulted. If I make a careless gesture and accidently smack you in the eye, I havn’t thrown a punch, but you still feel bruised.
My fault here. I mislabelled an adjective as an adverb, so that may be what muddied my meaning. One usage is as a verb (“you insulted her”) and the other usage is an adjective (“she can’t feel insulted”).
Gosh. You’re right; you said he just wasn’t worth fighting with. A distinction without a difference. And yes, that was my second mistake, in that I’d previously mislabeled a part of speech. Nothing wrong with my logic, however.
Yes, you have to accept that the word “insult” has more usages than those to which you’d like to restrict it. Equivocation and amphiboly, can result inadvertently if one uses language imprecisely in an argument.
That question should really go to the Ask de Bergerac thread.
In other words, is it possible to be insulted by a compliment? Yes. We even have a phrase to describe it, when done purposefully: a backhanded compliment.
The example of being derided in Hungarian almost exactly describes an actual experience of mine. I was in Paris on the Metro near a group of loud teenage boys. It soon became clear that they were focusing their attention on me, and it was obvious from their voices and facial expressions that they were making rude remarks. I’m quite sure they were hurling insults; however, the joke was on them, as I speak perhaps a dozen words of French and had no idea what they were actually saying, and therefore felt amused rather than insulted.
Now, my reaction to the words (whatever they were) doesn’t affect what was said, so it can be said that I was insulted under definition 1.a., because I was “treat[ed] with gross insensitivity, insolence, or contemptuous rudeness.” However, you could also, using definition 1.b., say that I was not insulted, because I was not “affront[ed] or demean[ed].” In other words, what Miller said: