Talk:Non-apology apology/Archives/2016

Ifpology. Absurd.

 * "I'm sorry if you were offended by what I said". The "if" implies that the apologiser either doesn't even know they did wrong (and did not bother to find out) or else does not acknowledge that they did wrong and so are pretending to apologise because they feel obligated to rather than because they are actually sorry. There is no confirmation that the apologiser actually regrets anything or has learnt anything from what they did that was wrong. According to John Kador in Effective Apology, "Adding the word if or any other conditional modifier to an apology makes it a non-apology."[12]

This is one of the silliest things I have ever read. Rather than illustrating pathological paranoia perhaps some of us would assume that the phrase means the apologiser is unsure whether their words caused offence - specifically whether offence was taken or not. If I say something that was someone callous, and realise it / catch myself before the audience I am talking to has a chance to react, I could pre-emptively phrase an apology that way and it would be perfectly valid. This entire article seems like patent absurdity though, so I can understand why the most obvious implication was obtusely left out of the implications entirely. But dear freakin' god. C'mon. 124.190.227.150 (talk) 04:12, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry that you think this is absurd, but . --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:22, 2 December 2016 (UTC)