While this is a true statement, it is also misleading. It does not speak to whether you intended it as an insult or not. Your three terse words presented without punctuation or even capital letters would be interpreted by most people as dismissive and insulting. No effort was taken to be careful of the recipient’s feelings, and it is easily anticipated by a highly educated person that it might be taken as an insult, so I can say with a high level of confidence that at the very least, you did not care if he took it as an insult or not, regardless of your actual intentions. In fact, it’s my personal opinion you wanted it to be received insultingly.
To be fair, while you didn’t use the word, you did directly call him uneducated, to his face.
IMO being called poorly educated doesn’t necessarily need to be taken as an insult
While this is a true statement, it is also misleading. It does not speak to whether you intended it as an insult or not. Your three terse words presented without punctuation or even capital letters would be interpreted by most people as dismissive and insulting. No effort was taken to be careful of the recipient’s feelings, and it is easily anticipated by a highly educated person that it might be taken as an insult, so I can say with a high level of confidence that at the very least, you did not care if he took it as an insult or not, regardless of your actual intentions. In fact, it’s my personal opinion you wanted it to be received insultingly.