Terminology question

HI all,

As I read chess books and also see videos lessons, the word "Punish" always repeats.
Why do I have to "punish" my opponent? Why being so cruel?
Why can't I instead "overcome" my opponent?
Punishing for me, takes me back to when I was a child and I was punished by parents for doing something wrong.
I love see this word being replaced with something less cruel because some people, like me, are more sensitive towards "punishment".

I didn't say it's not a battle but we don't need to be so cruel and "Punish" someone to make a mistake.
It's a game, not a prison.

Overcome implies an obstacle. Punish implies a mistake was made.

So in the case of a mistake, there's not really an obstacle to overcome. Punish is less wordy than some other options. Exploit is another way I've seen it referenced as well, but that also has some negative connotations as well.

Exploit will be much better than "Punish" in my opinion.
Punish is just too harsh from my point of view.

#1
"I was punished by parents for doing something wrong."
++ 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 f6? 3 Nxe5 punishes black for doing something wrong.

As suggested before I would say that white is exploiting black's mistake.
Punishing is for children.

"applied a lesson in chess skills' seems a bit wordy.

"Exploiting" implies that the victor cleverly induced a weakness and then exploited it.  "Punishing" implies that the loser tried something that was the wrong idea, and got zapped for it.  They don't imply the same thing.

You could try to take advantage of a mistake, instead of punishing it, if that helps.

You think "punishing" is bad, try "crushing their ego" like Fischer said

Punishing implies something swift and immediate.
Exploiting implies something subtle, maybe 10-20 moves to exploit some weakness.

First time I've ever heard that as a possible distinction. I've seen pressuring a player to make mistakes or concessions that can then be exploited but still have seen exploit be used no matter how the mistake or weakness occurs 

I think you're being overly sensitive, and I don't see the content creators changing their choice of words. If you can't resolve your conflict, maybe consider not reading those books or watching those videos?

How about whenever you see the word punish, just imagine it's the word penalize. 

A lot of people are overly sensitive to some words. Which in some cases, might be justified.  So when watching a video that uses that word, imagine the video was made 200 years ago, when the meaning was different. And imagine if they were to make the same video today, they would use the word penalize. 

Essentially it's all just semantics. Certain words are just used for emphasis. I wouldn't worry about it too much...

#13
exploit = to turn resources to economic account: utilise
punish = to impose a penalty on for a fault