According to wikipedia:

A category mistake, or category error, is a semantic or ontological error in which “things of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another”, or, alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. All (propositional) mistakes involve some sort of misascription of properties, so in a sense any mistake is a “category mistake”: putting a thing into a class to which it does not belong.

I think we often make category mistakes in our conversations, ascribing to communications communicative purposes other than those intended.

Since different kinds of communication require different modes of participation, the results can be quite violent.

Consider this partial and random list of communication events:

• Dialogue
• Assertion
• Argument
• Lecture
• Story
• Diatribe
• Interview
• Imitation
• Interrogation
• Debate
• Dispute
• Presentation
• Flattery
• Joke
• Appeal
• Demonstration
• Proof
• Critique
• Trial
• Ritual
• Protocol
• Proposal

To respond to one of these communication types as if it is another will cause misunderstandings of a kind we are not used to resolving.

It causes misunderstandings that arouse anxiety and hostility.

We might not be used to resolving such misunderstandings, but that does not mean we are not used to having them — inflicting them and suffering their consequences.