Apologies 101
I’ve accumulated these recently
words and phrases that don’t belong in apologies:
- If I as in “if I misunderstood” or “if I called you an ignorant jigaboo” . Unless you’ve been possessed by demons or a suffered a sudden fit of amnesia, you know perfectly well what you did.
- if you as in “If you were offended when I said the smell of your crotch makes birds fall out of the sky”. If you don’t know how to use words to convey meaning, you’re unfit for human company. Confessing that inability and trying to make somebody else responsible doesn’t make you less of a jerk. It makes you more of a jerk
- I didn’t mean as in “When I called you a watermellon chomping pickaninny I didn’t mean to be/sound racist.” Once more, this is either demonic possession or inability to use words to convey meaning.
When you fuck up, for Christ’s sake own up to it and say you’re sorry. Doing that doesn’t get you instant and automatic forgiveness. But you’ll have the small satisfaction that for once in your life you did the right thing,
Late addition, inspired by commenter riese (h/t to Amber Rhea): when you’ve apologized, don’t do that shit no more! Keeping on with the same behavior makes you look like George W. bush: too stupid to learn, too rigid to change.
If I swiped your work in the list above without giving proper credit, well excuuuuuuuuuuse me!
I’m seriously behind in finding and crediting sources for this again. I’ll keep searching. Sorry. One good thing: I’m reading and re-reading some wonderful pieces.
And if you can’t find examples aplenty of what not to do, you might want to read this piece by nojojojo about how Helix editor William Sanders handled his apology.