I think Direwraith and Hornet make very good points. It's very, very easy for your words to be misunderstood. And I have, like Direwraith, had the experience of looking at my own words and thinking, "Oh, my. That does sound aggressive."

Even if we were all English Lit PhD students, we'd probably still argue over meaning and semantics. 

I think the best solution is to adopt a more humble approach if your words are misconstrued, and just apologize. Amazing how many conflicts between reasonable people can be put to rest this way.

Not with the extremely lame "I'm sorry if you misunderstood," (putting the blame on the other person for failing to get your meaning) but rather, "It wasn't my intent to offend you. But I can see how you could read it that way. I'm sorry that I didn't make myself clear enough," which takes responsibility for the error in communication.

Edit: 99 times out of a 100 (in my experience), an apology like that provokes the other person to apologize as well for jumping to conclusions or overreacting or whatever.

Now, if I can just remember to do this myself! (I do try!)

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