There's a woman I know from the children's museum.

[conuly]

And, long story short, she can be very... uh... direct when speaking to people. Which is to say that she's blunt to a point that I've long since learned most people don't appreciate, but she hasn't.

Which is great for me, because when I can talk to people the way I like to talk and I know they don't get offended, I'm a very happy Connie. And unless I'm severely misjudging her, I'm quite certain she doesn't *really* think that everybody in the world who doesn't do things like her is... well, I'm sure she does think she's wrong, but I think something similar if I'm honest, so that's all right.

But she has felt she doesn't have enough friends. And it came up and I mentioned that maybe she comes on just a tiny bit too strong at times, and she says "I always say no offense!" or "It's my opinion!"

And I do believe she means it when she says it, too.

So I'm about to explain to you all what I eventually worked out for myself out of years of work and effort, and which she hasn't, and which somebody might find useful:

When you say "It's my opinion" or "No offense" you might think you're sounding less judgmental, and you might quite honestly mean "this is only my opinion" or "I do not intend to offend you, I just don't know how to say it nicely", but the vast majority of the world isn't going to interpret it that way, because if they said those things, no matter how they justified it, deep down they wouldn't mean it. So instead of your desired effect (unless of course you were consciously using those phrases to deflect criticism while insulting others, in which case you still could do better), you sound *more* judgmental, *more* critical, and *more* insulting. And people certainly shouldn't use those phrases in that way, but they do, and until you can smack every one of them with a dictionary and make them talk right (which means, of course, the way I do it!), you're better off trying to suck it up and expurgating those phrases from your vocabulary.

Now, there is a polite way to talk about how your choices are right without sounding like how other people do things is totally wrong. I'm sure of it. There must be. But whatever that polite way is, it's not to frame your statements with phrases like "My opinion" and "No offense". People are never going to take that the right way (unless, again, the right way includes them getting upset at you without quite knowing how to return the comment, in which case, bravo!).

Comments

[siderea]

I have a somewhat different perspective. "No offense" is actively rude when used as she describes, not because people say it and lie, but because people say it and are telling a truth: they don't want the other person to be offended, so they are telling the other person, "Don't be offended by what I am about to say."

It's almost always rude to tell other people how to feel. (Same goes for "Don't be angry!" and "Don't be sad!") Offense is a feeling. Everybody is entitled to have his or her own feelings in response to what they encounter in the world.

If you want other people to know that you don't mean to offend, then that is a plausible thing to say: "I don't mean to offend." But delivered defensively it implies, "You have no right to feel the way you do about what I said/did."

If what you really mean is, "I want to say this and don't know how to do so in a way which will not offend, but I am going to say it anyways and risk offending you, so I request you cut me extra slack"... that's a request, so frame it as such: "Please forgive me if I put this badly...." And deliver it apologetically.

Because in deciding it is more important to say something that might give offense than it is to be concerned with someone else's possible offense, one is sending a clear message one is priorizing one's own interests over those of the person with whom one is speaking. That can be OK, but it is decent to acknowledge one is "putting someone else out" for one's own sake with an apology to the disadvantaged party.

It is exactly the same as when one moves into someone else's personal space, say, to reach something on the table, or when you have to touch someone to slide past them. When you decide to violate someone else's conventional boundaries for one's own ends, one apologizes.

That all explains why saying "No offense" actually often causes even more offense. But it doesn't explain why saying "No offense" doesn't even work in the first place.

The reason it doesn't work is that offense isn't just a matter of whether or not it's intended.

One idiom in English for causing offense is "stepping on someone's toes", which is a great metaphor. Telling someone not to feel offense when you say something potentially offensive is like telling someone, "don't feel pain when I step on your toes, because I don't mean for you to feel pain when I step on your toes!" Whether or hurts when someone steps on your toes has more to do with whether or not you are wearing steel-toed shoes, how heavy they are, how hard they step on them, what shoes they are wearing and so forth, rather than whether or not they mean to cause you pain. Obviously, if they want to cause pain, they'll stomp harder on your toes. But if they accidentally stomp just as hard on your toes as they would have if they meant to hurt you, it will hurt just as much.

How much something said is offensive to a person who hears it isn't just a matter of whether the speaker is trying to offend. Sure, if she's trying to offend, she'll "stomp" harder. But if she accidentally says something which is just as hard a stomp as she would have stomped had she meant to offend, then it will offend just as much.

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

Your comment is so well thought out and really captures the issue at hand, and I love it! I think you really hit the largely-unconcious reasons that phrasing it with "No offense" is reacted to so badly.

In particular, I love your advice of using "Please forgive me if I put this badly...." And deliver it apologetically. I think Connie should add it at the top for people to see right away! *cough*hint*cough* ;-)

[conuly]

What? What was that? Connie doesn't like hints and would prefer direct suggestions. Hint hint.