I had a conversation with my son who is in his twenties about this. He'd heard it but hadn't thought of the consequences of actually believing it. It's bad. Real bad. Words are words. They can hurt you emotionally. That isn't nothing. But it isn't violence. Sure, words can lead to violence but calling them violence is not only dumb, it leads to the justification of actual violence in response to things you don't like to hear.

If words are violence words have no meaning at all.