People who "apologize" with "If I offended you..."

[mjr]

It's dumb.

If you have to make a public apology, you obviously offended somebody!!

Suck it up and say, "I realize that my comments/actions/whatever were inappropriate, and to those I offended, I apologize."

Saying "If I offended you..." or "If you were offended..." sounds an awful lot like a non-apology to me.

[s_stabeler]

it's not- it's usually a passive-agressive way of indicating that you apologize for causing offense- but not for the statement itself. ( in other words, it can be translated as "I'm sorry you consider what I said offensive"

edit- just to make it clear, it's not an apology.

[Andara Bledin]

Totally not an apology.

It's more along the lines, "I'm sorry you heard the horrible thing I said, but I'm totally not sorry that I said a horrible thing."

[Hyena Dandy]

Sometimes I'd say it depends, in part, on why they're offended. I've been told I need to apologize for wearing a fedora, buying Madden, and watching My Little Pony. Both cases, really the only thing I can apologize for is 'I'm sorry if you were offended by that...' Because I really don't think that I should need to apologize for my hat or what I do for fun.

[Kheldarson]

It's dumb.

If you have to make a public apology, you obviously offended somebody!!

Suck it up and say, "I realize that my comments/actions/whatever were inappropriate, and to those I offended, I apologize."

Saying "If I offended you..." or "If you were offended..." sounds an awful lot like a non-apology to me.

I dunno. Sometimes it's legit, like a worker apologizing to a customer because policy made the worker say "no".

[mjr]

I dunno. Sometimes it's legit, like a worker apologizing to a customer because policy made the worker say "no".

In this case, I agree. But I'm speaking mostly about "public figures" (politicians, news people, etc.).

[s_stabeler]

in the case of a worker though, it's apologizing that you can't help them- which IS a genuine apology usually. In this case, it is situations where the apology implies that it shouldn't be necessary to apologize.

[drjonah]

I've had to use that kind of apology before because I had NO IDEA why said person was mad at me. When suddenly someone stops talking to me and won't say why, then I have to grasp at straws and kind of assume I did something to offend them/piss them off.

[Estil]

Or maybe the fault lies in them not you most likely? ;P I mean really if someone just suddenly cuts you off for no apparent reason like that, you probably don't need them anyway :P