Offensive/offense-Taken or Given?

Idk I thought this might an interesting discussion, I personally believe that offense is taken not given. (Insert pic of “change my mind” desk)

 

Look it wider. Imagine offence is a thing. A person can give it to you or not. And you can take it or deny it. So it's relative.

In real world things are more complicated. A person can say something neutral, but you think it is offensive. Also sometimes you cannot deliberately choose whether to accept or deny an offence, because it relies mostly on your emotions and subconscious.

 

That’s a fair interpretation however for a person who doesn’t take offense to anything, nothing you can say will offend them. On the other hand to a person who is offended by everything there is nothing you can say that won’t offend them. Therefore the only guilding factor to weather or not offense is shown is by weather or not the person takes a/the statement to be offensive or not. I hope that makes sense.

 

It is a different argument on weather or not the person who is speaking is trying to offend but in the end the only way something is offensive is if someone is offended.

 

Dear Malove, I suppose you're trying to find a simple "black or white" solution for a collorfull world. Offence is a form of attack. For example, Alice wants to hit Bob with a stick. You states that only if Bob feels pain and has wound or bruise after encountering with the stick then the offence takes place.

But what if Alice misses? She feels agression. She has intention to make Bob feel bad. She has performed an attempt of attack on him. Isn't it offence? If we give this situation a definition "attempted offence", then the situation you are focused on can be called as "commited offence".

I'm not native English speaker and I understand that we're discussing these:

"offence" = "when you offend or upset someone by something you do or say" (#2 here)
"offend" = "to make someone angry or upset by doing or saying something that they think is rude, unkind etc" (#1 here)

But look how many other meanings there are!

We are deeply social life beings. If somebody doesn't show any sign of being offended they still can feel it now or later when nobody watches. So I'm sure such kind of person does not exist on Earth... Maybe, except mental hospital, but who can tell what patient feels for real?

In this case Bob is an attacker and a victim at the same time. He's hitting his head with a stick. So there's no chance to dodge. Alice is not guilty, but she sould call for mental help for Bob

 

I think there is critical difference in the structures or our aruguements. I belive that someone cannot choose if they are offended or not but they can choose to show the physical demeanor of a person who is offended.