Battery: the intentional infliction of harmful or offensive contact.

Assault: the intentional creation of the apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact.

There can be one without the other:

A swing and a miss is an assault but not a battery.

A blow from behind is a battery but not an assault.

But assaults are not attempted batteries, even if one commits an assault while attempting to batter, because:

Assault concerns an independent kind of harm.

There is no such thing as an attempted tort.

Linden (reporting on case law):

Allowing people to sue pre-empts retaliation, and generally deceases violence.

An alternative view:

These torts protect or vindicate interests in personal security, and more generally, a dignitary interest or an interest in autonomy.

Physical harm is not necessary.

Intention to harm or insult is not necessary.

Plaintiff need not have been aware of the contact at the time.

Defendant's ability to deliver on the threat is not necessary, so long as plaintiff's apprehension is reasonable.

Actual fear is not necessary.

Plaintiff must have been aware of the threat.

An echo of Fagan: was there one act or two?

The legal point:

"If physical contact was intended, the fact that its magnitude exceeded all reasonable or intended expectations should make no difference."

As we will see, this marks an important difference between intentional torts and negligence.