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Comment by drumdance | Hacker News Reader

I think the point is that to be harassed is to be engaged in a competition - for autonomy, freedom, time to make up your mind on your own etc.

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I hope not, because that would be an extremely facile explanation. I don't think anybody, when asked to describe the feeling of being harassed, would describe it with anything resembling "I feel like I'm in a competition with another male for autonomy, freedom and time to make up my mind."

You've got it completely scrambled: Nobody is being asked to describe the feeling of being harassed. That was the word Udo chose to describe the feeling of dealing with a salesperson.

I simply found it odd (very odd) that someone who uses a word that denotes aggression or attack to describe that situation would simultaneously find it totally alien to think of it as competitive.

Though those are valid definitions, I don't think "harass" necessarily has that violent connotation in most people's minds. It is commonly used as a slightly more intense form of "pester." I've actually heard people laugh at the term being used to refer to violence, because they think of it as a synonym for "annoy," and the idea of being "annoyed by gunfire" is humorously mild.

The point is not dependent on the words being synonymous, nor did I ever claim that they were.

(edit: I mistook who I was responding to and changed the comment accordingly.)

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