Agreed with all points. Although I think we all know how damaging even standard schoolyard speech can be, certainly for those at an age to not really have any defenses against it. Heck, I can tell you most of the names I was called from 3rd grade on, including "Big Ears", "Goofy", and "Shitty Smitty" (one of the school bus drivers! He said it as a term of endearment, I guess, because he was always great to me otherwise, but naturally it caught on with the kids).

One girl, a very tall and pretty one in my seventh grade Spanish class, told me she loved me one day. Thing is, she was very popular, and I wasn't, and the way she did it was calculated to humiliate me for days.

The phrase "kill with a word" is not inaccurate, at the right age.