Wiki says that it refers to offensive speech that is legally prosecutable. But I had always heard it referred to in a different manner, as in the phrase “them’s fightin’ words”. Meaning, an insult so egregious that verbal or physical assault is a justifiable response. (In olden times, sufficient cause to challenge to a duel.) Specifically, the defense against a charge of assault on the grounds that one had been verbally provoked beyond the limits of civility- Buzz Aldrin punching out the guy who called him “a liar and a coward” for example. If “fighting words” does not mean that, then is there a legal phrase for what I’ve described?
Don’t know about a legal phrase, but I agree with you about its common usage. I’ve never heard it used as Wiki’s definition.
Well, the colloquial meaning and the legal meaning aren’t all that different. The current law on “fighting words” is Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (as perhaps distinguished from incitement to violence, which would be Brandenburg). Very briefly, Chaplinsky approved criminal penalties for one who uttered phrases so insulting that a reasonable person of ordinary restraint could not resist the urge to respond physically. Two points: (1) merely calling someone a liar or coward would not rise to that level, and (2) as a society, at least within that subset that works in the courts, physical responses are roundly disfavored. I think these days, a fact pattern that presented a fighting words scenario would more likely be evaluated under Brandenburg. The difference is this: under Chaplinsky the audience’s mischief is the grounds for the restriction, under Brandenburg it is the “bad tendency” of the speaker’s remarks that justify the prohibition.
It is not a defense to assault; it asserts the constitutionality of restrictions on speech.