Meta. God this is boring. As briskly as possible –
to call the situations “threatening” runs a massive risk of saying that they were intentional threats, not that the person was reasonable to feel, at least, that there might be a threat.
What “massive risk”? There was nothing at stake. No one was named. What possible “massive risk” could there be? Harm to the reputation of [????????] That’s not a risk.
Thus, the “risk” I am talking about is another type of risk, the risk of using the word “threatening” to refer to the intentions of people as opposed to what people like Watson and Ophelia might feel based, which is wrong. Thus, it opens up the risk of being wrong.
Oh that massive risk. So it’s massively risky for me to use the word “threats” to refer to threats but it’s fine for you to warn of the “massive risk” of…being wrong.
If someone says that “X was threatening you”, then the implication is always that that was intentional, and not just that the person found it threatening.
But that isn’t what I said. I said I got email threats. The whole rest of your reply is subject to the same objection. Careless; points deducted.
your original post stated, unambiguously, that you had “got email threats about TAM”. No ifs, no buts, no nuance.
But getting threats doesn’t mean one thing and one thing only. I did get threats: threats about what was likely to happen, and how likely it was. Somebody telling me that it was very likely that I would be shot at TAM felt like a threat to me. That’s a perfectly normal use of the word. People talk about a threat of rain, for godsake.
My personal opinion is that you made a error of judgement in your original post.
By saying I got email threats when I did get email threats. That’s ridiculous.
I fear that you’re defending the indefensible
See above.
The clear meaning here was that the emailer threatened her.
No. One possible meaning; not the clear meaning.
My observation is that Ophelia is now complaining that reasonable people are not taking a nuanced approach which would not be possible from the original post.
Yes it would; see above.
It’s very kind of both of you to spend this much time and effort trying to show that I was wrong to say I got threats when I got threats, but really, it’s not necessary. I got this.