No doubt about it if you make the extra effort to bold select text in email you are being bold! Don’t underestimate how bolding certain words or sentences can make an otherwise benign statement one with emphasis. To bold only certain terms or phrases certainly makes a point of making a point.
Then, if you turn that bolded word to red text — Yikes! This definitely make things worse and add multiple !!! or ??? and you are clearly upset. Plan on the person on the other side to perceive that emphasis X10 your intent!
Be very sure that this emotional and emphasized tone is what you want to relay before hitting Send. To say after the fact that you “didn’t mean it that way” simply implies you are unable to stand behind your comments and what you did in fact mean to say when you composed that email. Otherwise why did you bold those specific words — why did you change them to red?
Emotionally charged emails many times includes bolding of certain words or phrases to make sure the other side is clear about how strongly the writer feels at that time. If you find you are bolding several portions of an email (or hitting the keyboard with a little more oomph) because you do in fact want to make a point, why not wait until the next morning to see if you still feel as strongly?
You will be glad you did…