What does the term "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" mean?

yeah words do hurt so i never knew what the saying meant

I wud rather get hit than have someone say bad things about me, the words stay in ur head, the bruises will go away

I agree completely. I prefer the one “sticks and stones may break her bones but words may make her starve herself”, personally :P

Very nice Connor and very true, that’s wat it did to me :-(

Yeah =/ sucks.

Yep it does

I agree with you all…words can be way way way more powerful then physical pain. They linger in your subconscious til you learn to deal with them & say the hell with ya… sometimes you keep hearing them like play backs…that is the worst excruciating pain ever!

agreed a bruice or cut will heal, but someones hurtful words stay with you in your memory and when you think about it your hurt all over again.

i rather be called something bad then get hit because being injured take time to heal and word are just words and it doesn’t change how you look but just hurt your feelings if you let it. you can eather be tough and just f-ck the words or just be a sensitive and let it take control over you.

I actually think that your saying is not about personal relations originally. But about freedom of speech. It’s like… you can say anything you want to. I may not agree, but words don’t hurt me so you’re allowed to say, even if it’s against me.

Well from someone that got to live through both sides of this conversation…The pain of the physical abuse is by far the easier one..I lived through physical abuse & mental/emotional/ verbal abuse even sexual abuse…and I must say that there is no greater pain then living a life constantly reliving incidents that occur playing over & over & over in your mind. You get beat it hurts for a time then the bruises go away the memories dont…you cant make your mind stop working…I dont give a rays @ss how many times people will tell you meditation helps…clear your mind…focus on other things because it is just words…how about they become prisons of words in their head words that hurt harder then any sharp object that you can be beaten with…a wound will heal & vanish in due time…words are locked up in your mind & play a key roll on how one survives…Dont believe me, take a course in psychology…learn about human behaviors…why a cr!m!nal commits a cr!me and why an abuser winds up abusing…most of the time it is a chain reaction…a bully will bully in class because he has been bullied elsewhere…same with an officer…those that abuse power are the ones that have been abused…most of the time in their childhood by perhaps a teacher, a parent, classmates, a neighbor or someone at the groc store….in any case…I am a prisoner of words unsaid…:(

When someone says something upsetting to you it shouldnt hurt you but if someone hurt you physically then it would

It’s like saying “say what you want, I don’t care”.