[permo-w]

the definition of scolding is "angrily rebuking or reprimanding someone". in my understanding of human psychology, that is something people do not do to people they see as equals. more specifically it's a behaviour a person is extremely unlikely to participate in if they feel the other person has enough social, physical or economic capital to punish them for it.

[matheusmoreira]

I see your point and you're definitely right about that. If you're going to publicly scold someone in front of their peers, you better be ready because it's going to personally insult them in very deep ways, to say nothing of their social standing.

If you're scolding someone you should probably be a badass drill sergeant, literally made of muscle, many times their superior in rank and with enough balls and testosterone to unblinkingly look them in the eye while heaping abuse right at their faces without one shred of hesitation, so that the sheer audacity of it all shocks and intimidates them into total submission. And you would also do well to remember that at least one movie depicts exactly one such drill sergeant getting shot in the chest when a certain scoldee went postal over it.

[d0gsg0w00f]

    it's going to personally insult them in very deep ways,

That's exactly the point of scolding. To help people calibrate social behavior outside of the judicial system. We do 10,000 things per day that are now necessarily laws but are carefully tuned social behaviors.

I didn't really understand this until I had a 2 yr old and had to explain all of them.

Sure, there are more tactful ways to scold but sometimes when people are too far gone you just have to publicly shame. They've already missed a few dozen subtle cues before making it to this point