Learning How to Deal with Verbal Abuse

I'm reading The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense by Suzette Haden Elgin.  It's given me a lot of tools and strategies that I can use when someone commits a verbal assault against me. Too many times, I've reflected on how I could have handled such an attack better. Thanks to this book, I can hear the cues, detect the words and the subtle direction that a person is taking to twist the knife. Now that I know this, I can take on all verbal attackers!