Boo hoo!
Sticks and stones break my bones.
But words? They just tick me off!
In the South, we speak of fighting words, words that can lead to the shedding of blood. The Bible speaks of the tongue as a weapon and words as arrows that pierce the heart. Which is why so much police work is answering domestic calls. Nothing is so wounding as an unkind word spoken by a person who knows us all too well.