verbal abuse is NOT an acceptable part of society. It may happen more than we like– but will NEVER be acceptable

Verbal abuse protected under the free speech- i think not if it hurts someone it is not protected

I think a lot of it may be the media, or the attitude the media reflects. How many TV shows revolve around people insulting one another? Next time you watch “Everybody Loves Raymond,” ask yourself every time you hear the laugh track: “Was that verbal abuse?” I think you’ll be surprised at how many times our media classifies hurtful, abusive things as funny.
Even as far back as the fifties, verbal abuse was promoted as entertaining. Jackie Gleason always said,”One of these days, to the moon, Alice!” and everyone laughed. I never found that funny. He’s threatening to use violence against her.
I think, for verbal abuse to be considered unacceptable, we’re all going to have to make a change. Our society, our media, out individual citizens….We’re all going to have to demand that it not be glorified anymore, and recognize it for the horrid experience that it is.

Verbal abuse is not acceptable, but I think what is really damaging is chronic verbal abuse. It is probably more accepted since it is more difficult to prove that someone is doing this to you, also it can easily be a gray area, a lot of stuff is borderline and it is unclear where the lines are drawn. Also freedom of speech has limits and one can be banned from different venues if they are out of line. Also this type of behavior would seem to most likely violate company workplace standards, etc.
The difficulty in making this a legal or criminal issue is it would be very difficult in proving these “inward scars”.

I agree that words can scar inside especially if it has been ongoing as in bad relationships. I have known women who have lost all self esteem because their significant other verbally abused them so much that they actually started to believe they were worthless. We can’t always take everything said to heart, but in ongoing situations, I think something should be done about it. As for blobback and the answer that was left to your question, I would just ignore the immature sarcasm. I have read this person’s profile on various answers and will be reported due to rude comments, not just to your question, but to others. Take a look and you will see a good example of verbal abuse on yahoo answers.

I think freedom of speech is why. And its something everyone deals with and for me anyone that feels its alright to verbally abuse anyone including the phrase “thats gay” or calling someone the N word, white or black, is nothing to me. You don’t deserve my time. Most of the time people don’t put up with it.

I feel that verbal abuse is acceptable because it doesn’t involve physical contact. If an individual is being verbally abused, then the abused individual can reciprocate the abuse by verbally bashing the abuser right back. Verbal abuse is a battle everyone can equally participate in. In the case of physical abuse, people are of different physical stature, so its not acceptable. And like you said, 1st amendment protects what people can say. Censorship is extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.

Verbal abuse is only protected under freedom of speech to an extent - anything further than expressing an opinion can be taken as harassment which is not protected under the freedom of speech. Yelling/screaming/verbal abuse is a form of expressing anger and everyone yells at sometime in their life. If you’re being harassed I would best file a police report, you may not know your rights.

some people might consider statements to be verbal abuse , but others might not, because it would be a matter of opinion. but with physical abuse, it leaves actual scars that are visible and cannot be contradicted.