Intimidation or threat?

Currently into The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker.

So far, interesting, but can’t make any firm reviews just yet.

One thing that has stood out to me is when de Becker compares ‘threats’ to ‘intimidations’.

Threats being defined as when someone doesn’t give you a choice with their aggressive dialogue. For example, “I’m going to kill you.”

Intimidations meaning there is a choice or they are trying to coerce you into something. For example, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t change your behaviour.”

The former should be taken more seriously because there is no option, it’s simply “I’m going to do this.”

When you think about it the majority of time you get “threatened” it’s actually an intimidation.