[jack-r-abbit]

See? I guess I wasn't clear enough. I meant to say: He didn't clarify if making a woman cry was a generalization or something that had actually happened to him (like the falling in love part). But yes, he did speak to it further in the context of "you need to be able to criticize people without them crying."

An equally valuable lesson is if something can be taken different ways, make sure you are taking it the same way the other person meant it. He didn't say it was or was not a generalization. He didn't say it was or was not only personal experience. Everyone just made their own assumptions.

[dragonwriter]

> An equally valuable lesson is if something can be taken different ways, make sure you are taking it the same way the other person meant it.

In English, you can be specific or generic, but it can't mean "I and only I".

Your suggested "interpretation" is a radical rewriting that even Hunt's own apology/defense doesn't offer, it just offers experience as the basis for the generalizations.

[jack-r-abbit]

> you can be specific or generic

Well... there you go. I thought when you said "you" you were specifically referring to me. But then I reread it and it turns out you were saying "[the word] you." English is a pretty complicated language. No wonder we're always pissing each other off. (Edit: "we're" was not meant to refer to specifically you and I. It was a more general "we as a people."

[Nadya]

Offense is rarely given - only taken. It doesn't matter how you meant to say something or what context you said it in. If someone wants to be offended by it, they will. [0]

[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/01/30/...