The rhetorical sorry is much like the rhetorical "how are you?". The primary meaning of "how are you?" is:
"Although we are not close enough in relations to actually spend time talking about how we each really are, it does matter to me if you are well even though we don't have time to literally answer this question we've asked each other"
You can't make this literal without killing the sense of it being genuine
The beauty of, "I'm sorry you feel that way" is that it's harder to reject than a statement with no rhetorical apology at all since there might be a bit and it's so similar to the standard rhetorical sorry
At the same time it pretty much removes any actual expression of apology when it's being inappropriately demanded as assurance that you really take their side. This is a good way to deal with political correctness and its ongoing versions, or nonpolitical inappropriate personal demands
> Suppose you are a college speaker, advocating a political point which you believe to be true and important. Someone in the audience says they’re triggered by it and now you’ve traumatized them.
In this example, there is no disagreement - you agree and acknowledge that they were hurt by the words, and you're sorry-as-in-sad about the fact and want to express sympathy and that the act wasn't intended to hurt them... but despite that, the action was morally appropriate - and while the other person *could* disagree about that, as of yet they haven't said that, so it's not a clear that you disagree about something, much less the specifics of the hypothetical disagreement.
I'm assuming that you both agree that the thing is triggering and you both agree that the thing is true.
You might disagree whether triggering true things should be said in this venue, but at that point in the conversation it's not yet established whether that's the case or not - because it would also seem reasonable for me to say that this topic is painful for me because of some circumstances, and request that perhaps we should change the subject, but *without* asserting that the speaker had some duty to avoid it or verify beforehand and did anything wrong.
The example scenario involved being in the audience at a speech; audience members do not normally have social standing to request a change of topic at such a speech, nor is it typically remotely practical to for the speaker to suddenly switch to a speech about an unrelated topic, even if they were inclined to do so.
Announcing that you've been triggered conversationally implies that you want *something* to be done about that. And if your goal was merely that you personally didn't want to hear it, you would presumably have left the room, instead of disrupting the event.
I agree the complaint doesn't necessarily imply moral fault, but it nearly certainly implies you want the speaker to act differently in the future, and is nearly certain to be understood that way by everyone else in the room. If you refuse to respond to that obvious implication, I think you're likely to be perceived as confusing, foolish, and/or rude.
If you feel it is important not to assume someone meant something they didn't technically say (even in situations where you have high confidence), I recommend asking a direct question about it, like "what do you think should be done about that?" or "are you suggesting I shouldn't have said it?" Unfortunately, even that may be seen as rude, but at least it doesn't result in talking past each other.
Ok, this "Martian" discourse is really bugging me. Wargaming casual conversation! Why do rationalists do this? We should be trying to make communication more rational, and above all more honest, rather than methodically working out how to perfectly conform to people's irrational and dishonest preferences. It's creepy, it's calculatingly manipulative, and most ironically it's more "Martian" than anything else you could do.
Effortlessly speaking in a natural-sounding way --> effortlessly speaking in a highly accurate stilted-sounding way --> carefully pre-calculating how to speak in an accurate-sounding way --> carefully pre-calculating how to speak in a natural-sounding way.
I would expect that's the hierarchy of non-weirdness in your discourse, even if you only care about sounding cool (and not, you know, about morality and truth). What's wrong with you all?????
Acknowledging the difficulties of making communication more rational is part of making communication more rational. No one here is aiming at conformity, let alone manipulation, tut. As for your weirdness hierarchy, if by weird you mean uncommon, your rankings are incorrect.
I think there's a big difference between acknowledging that certain phrases don't work as well and treating that as a decisive reason to reject them. I wouldn't even mind if people were *arguing* that you should optimise all communication for perfect naturalness above all else. What I hate is when this is just *assumed* to be the single most important factor.
You say casual conversation but we are talking about conversations that have escalated to the point where some kind of walk-back seems necessary, but risks escalating the situation.
Okay, fair point, it does depend on how significant the conversation is. Planning out the diplomacy of some major personal conflict is very sensible. Though I'm not sure how high "not sounding like a Martian" is on the importance list in that situation.
I agree, Scott has outed me as a Martian and I think he is making a fair point but as I said in my reply, sounding like a Martian is less bad in the context of an escalating argument than in bed.
The word "effortlessly" is highly inaccurate here. All communication takes effort. Precise communication takes more effort, adds time for each party to think things through, adds extra words and stumbling blocks, and requires diversions to explain terms in a rigorous way.
"Carefully pre-calculating how to speak in a natural-sounding way" is better known as "learning to speak well" and it eventually becomes effortless. Highly accurate speech in low-stakes situations is undesirable and inefficient, for the same reason that always getting to the airport five hours early and never missing a flight is undesirable and inefficient: using precision as a safeguard against misunderstanding costs you much more than a misunderstanding would.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but can you elaborate on what precision costs you? Is it only the extra unnecessary effort? It seems to me that a norm encouraging everyone to be more precise in general would be beneficial for society. Even if one's own extra precision is not helping discourse on its own, it may be helping to promote that norm.
My guiding principle is whenever I have an exchange of words with someone I have entered into a negotiation. Some negotiations are trivial, and others complex but the same principle applies.
“When I use a word it means exactly what I intend it to mean, no more and no less.” says someone in Alice in Wonderland. It’s precise, but begs the question. For practical purposes the only meaning in my words is the one the listener imputes to them, and vice versa.
“Have I made myself understood?” is the cry in the wilderness.
Consider "fucking stop moving or you'll die; don't get within a metre of that cable; move back or the spark will kill you" and compare with "you are about 130 centimetres from a fallen 275 kilovolt transmission line, an arc from which could cross a gap of perhaps 50 or 60 centimetres, from memory, but my memory is pretty good to the point I'm 80% sure I'm right, and your distance gives you a safety margin of less than a metre, which I deem insufficient due to the risk of falls or mishaps, so in order to ensure your personal safety, you must increase your distance from said transmission line."
The example might be something of a strawman, given that it's a lot more dire than "we disagree; no offence intended", but:
A) fast transfer of important information can be vital to one's goals, like preserving life,
B) hierarchy of importance in information can be lost in the details, and
C) as long as the key point is precise (urgency: "fucking", action: "stop moving") it doesn't matter whether you call it a cable or a line, nor whether a metre is the precise distance a spark might cross.
This is still important even if you're trying to disagree without upsetting someone, or sleep with your new girlfriend without her putting her pants on and breaking up with you for ruining your first night together. Inefficient communication wastes time, and that means it dilutes the message, sometimes so much that the message doesn't get to the other person.
(As an aside, I reckon the swearing would be effective in my culture, but in others it might also distract from the message.)
That was a good comment, and now I'm somewhat rethinking my position. It does indeed seem that too much accuracy can paradoxically harm accuracy. I'm not sure if it justifies the extent of peoples' obsession with seeming natural and charismatic, but I agree I was downplaying the latter's importance to some extent. Thanks.
I described the argument in the original post to my wife, and she said "If you ever say 'I'm sorry you feel that way to me, we're going to have a big problem."
It seems fine to me, but I think the phrase is just too far gone to be rehabilitated, alas!
Eh, I'm not sure that there ever was a time when most people found it acceptable, even when they weren't yet tripped up by "I'm sorry that your aunt died". "I'm sorry you feel that way" just oozes irritated passive-aggressiveness instead of alleged sympathy, unless you know that you're speaking to a Martian.
As someone who has worked customer service jobs in the past, I appreciate anyone noticing that certain phrases, while technically correct, simply do not work if a human says them in a conversation. Some of my old bosses certainly did not understand that.
I’m a bit passive aggressive, so I use “I understand your point” or “I get where you’re coming from.” I find it tends to do the job of threading the needle; all but the most socially inept get that it’s empathy without apology.
This is the answer, I think these phrases are a lot less passive-aggressive and more pro-social than ISYFTW. These phrases basically say “I hear you, and I acknowledge your perspective is reasonable, even if I disagree” which is much more satisfying than ISYFTW’s implication that “I can’t see any reasonable point worth hearing in your complaint, it must be entirely a problem with your emotions so I’m washing my hands of it.”
I agree as well. I don't know whether Kurt was saying he thinks this is a passive aggressive thing to say or whether he likes these phrases because they are clearly not passive aggressive and so feel safe to have on hand. I like them and all their variations just fine -- "I get that" or "I hear you" or "I can see that."
They are very low effort demonstrations of care or interest and so depending on context, would need to be followed up with more for people you're not just passing acquainted with.
Yeah, I don't see those phrases as passive-aggressive. They're more defusing if anything. I sometimes get told I'm seen as quite diplomatic in some cases, especially preventing rows, and I use this approach. It's worth noting that we're not talking about literal stock phrases here, more a general attitude. I tend to find myself saying things like "I get where you're coming from, and it's a totally reasonable point, but I'm more concerned about XYZ." Generally prevents escalation, at least.
Pro tip: never say "but"! It breaks everything which is good in this approach. I propose: "I get where you're coming from, and it's a totally reasonable point, and that's why I'm concerned about XYZ."
I entirely endorse these phrases. And a key point that a lot of people are missing here is that very often the other person wants most of all to be *understood* (which is part of why ISYFTW is so enraging: it's a boilerplate phrase that can be said to anyone without even hearing--much less understanding--what they're saying).
Which also means the very best response is probably "I understand your point..." followed by a
paraphrase of their point in your own words. Then you can go on to explain why you still disagree, with the other person knowing you've *actually* taken in their perspective.
> which is part of why ISYFTW is so enraging: it's a boilerplate phrase that can be said to anyone without even hearing--much less understanding--what they're saying)
So is "I get where you're coming from". You can say whatever you want.
The reason this goes over better is that people respond better to the message "you are right to feel that way" than they do to "you are wrong to feel that way". That's the difference.
Kind of related, for years my mum has been saying she hates when people append "no offense" to the end of sentences which a reasonable person might find offensive. She says that if you don't want to cause offense, you should avoid saying things that a reasonable person might find offensive, not just say them anyway and append "no offense" to the end of it, like that automatically lets you off the hook.
I countered that the phrase "no offense" doesn't mean "I said a potentially offensive thing but I also said 'no offense' so they cancel out and now if you get mad, YOU'RE the asshole". The intent behind "no offense" is to convey the idea that, while the speaker is aware that some might take offense at what they just said, it was not their intention to CAUSE offense or insult by saying it: they're not just going out of their way to hurt people's feelings out of sheer malice. Consider "no offense, but you smell kind of bad - you might want to take a shower before we go out".
Of course according to this meaning the phrase is basically redundant: if you know someone well enough that you believe the potentially-offensive thing they said was said in good faith, the phrase "no offense" adds nothing (and if you distrust them such that you think they DID say it to piss you off, their saying "no offense" afterwards is unlikely to change your mind).
I agree, "no offense" is a relative statement that demonstrates that you are still personally on side with the person despite making an unusually direct criticism, it has a definite and valuable meaning
It's the same problem, though; in the current culture, saying "No offense, but" means "I totally intend to offend you." You have to know the nuances of the language as spoken. If I were trying to tell someone to shower more often, which I have actually had to do, I'd take a much longer way in. "I know sometimes we lose the ability to smell our own body odor, but others can still smell it. I think you're probably not aware that other people are avoiding you because you are not showering often enough." Something along those lines.
Personally I would be upset by the longer setup as it implies I have less agency. "No offense, but" suggests I have made an error I should not be expected to and the speaker is indicating that they are saying something that is ideally unnecessary if I live up to normal standards I can be expected to. They're still on my side, or not making a confrontational comment, but also indicating they expect more in this context. I feel in most cases this threads the needle well
You're both right. The problem is that one of you is talking about No Offense Classic™ and the other is talking about the relatively recent Sour No Offense™. Unfortunately, somebody at the company decided it would be edgy to put both products on the market with no labeling or packaging difference between them.
I think its place is in the “I mean no offense, but your fly is open.” category of discourse. Or in concert with an action you must take that might go against the grain if left unexplained; “ I hope you won’t be offended, but I won’t be able to share this meal with you, because [xyx reasons]. The general case being that you must behave in a way that violates some social expectations, but for a good reason., and you need some social lubricant.
It would be pointless to say “I mean no offence, but you’re an a**hole”; unless you enjoy the added sarcasm…
That is possible, but I think it has been over applied in recent years. "I like you, but I really need some quiet time alone now" doesn't negate what comes before the but, except in the mind of the overly sensitive or anxious. One might say prefacing something as "I am worried this will upset you, but as your friend I really feel like I need to talk to you about this" is equally bad, but is just the overly long form of the same sort of thing: people who read too much into it, who look for reasons to take offense or believe the worst, they are going to find it.
I say in recent years because it seems to me that there is an increase in the importance of performative behaviors in social interaction, which has led to an increase of discounting observed behaviors as being merely performative instead of sincere. Basically "You are only saying that because HR is making you, and you are really a bastard" applied to all interactions.
I like your examples of "but" as well, though I think "I need some time alone now, let's meet up later" is maybe better. And the other one is good enough starting with "As your friend, I really need to...." BUT also, who cares right? These are all plenty good and getting too fussy about parsing words is exhausting and unnecessary and underscores your other point.
My main point was just that "but" is best used sparingly and that it often undermines the thing that came before it. Not always though as you've pointed out!
I support more experimentation and courage in speaking up rather than less, and it's so much harder to learn and practice if everyone feels under a microscope which there's an awful lot of these days, plus additional bad faith.
This is such a low IQ meme. You see this constantly on the internet and in stand-up comedy routines. "You know how when people start a sentence with 'I'm not racist, but...', isn't it funny how you know the next thing they say is gonna be racist!!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!!! That's so contradictory!!! This is such a funny and unique insight!!!"
Like... do you know what the word "but" means?
> used to introduce a phrase or clause contrasting with what has already been mentioned.
No shit the thing that comes after "I'm not racist, but..." is going to sound racist. That's why the person prefaced what they were going to say with the "but" - because they knew it was going to sound like it contradicted the thing that came before. That's the reason they used that phrase. That's just the meaning of the word - that the thing coming next will sound contradictory to the thing that came before. You're not making a revelatory or interesting or humorous insight by noting that when people use the word "but" they tend to make two apparently contrasting statements.
Well, the point of the joke is that some people genuinely think that prefacing their spicy take with "I'm not racist" lets them off the hook, when it obviously doesn't work that way, so everybody can safely mock their clueless bigotry.
I am not racist, but I believe that black people were rare in medieval Poland.
Here, the introduction basically means: "I know you probably have been indoctrinated to believe that only a racist person would find something weird about a movie allegedly situated in medieval Poland where maybe 30% of actors are black. However, that is not true, or at least not about me. I needed to say this explicitly to at least make you consider the hypothesis that I might be making a factual historical statement rather than simply expressing hostility against black people."
Have you used the phrase in that way, in practice?
It just seems like an unusual way to use it. Why bring racism into it at all before anyone has accused you of it? To me, it sounds like you think believing black people were rare in medieval Poland is something that would make someone racist. But maybe that's because I assume that black people were rare in medieval Poland (not that I've looked into it).
But it's a bit like when I hear people declare themselves anti-racist. It seems like strange thing to say unless someone has specifically asked you for your position on it. Saying "I'm not racist" doesn't stop you being racist any more than declaring "I'm anti-racist" does. So I'm immediately trying to work out what the coded message they're trying to send is.
I suppose an analogy to your example might be "I'm not anti-Semitic, but I think Israeli settlements should be removed from the West Bank" or "I'm not Islamophobic, but I don't think Hamas should be targeting Israeli civilians". I'd definitely agree that someone could hold either position without being anti-Semitic or Islamophobic, but I'd be wondering what the point of adding the earlier declaration is, unless you think the listener is going to use an accusation of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia against you, and at that point it feels like you're assuming bad faith on their part. At that point, I don't see what it's adding.
Okay, not sure how on earth I provoked that rant. The point is that people will say something they don't really mean to soften up the other person for the actual disagreement/criticism/whatever. Nothing more. I wasn't intending to write a thesis on the word "but".
Compare the ill-informed "disclaimer" one often encounters these days in social media and on youtube: "All rights belong to the original creators. No copyright infringement intended."
Drawing attention to the thing you did and pointing out that you did in fact suspect it might have the effect it had but chose to do it anyway makes things worse, not better.
Maybe a good alternative would be "you have a right to feel that way, and I'm sympathetic". That sounds fairly natural, if maybe slightly too aloof for some situations.
It occurs to me that in my hostile reaction to the first post, I wasn't taking into account all possible contexts.
1) Interpersonal - this is what I was responding to when I said I strongly disagreed. In my defense many of the examples were about interpersonal disagreement, like refusing to buy a relative drugs. In those cases, I don't think "bespoke phrasing in the heat of the moment" is an unreasonable goal.
We often have to express ourselves under pressure, and the stock phrase comes off as at least equally martian as the suggested alternatives. The stock phrase is also...bad for its purpose. Both culturally - people seem to agree that it's not a good response - and literally. It definitionally means either "I'm sad you feel that way" which suggests you don't find their feelings valid, or "I'm taking responsibility for you feeling that way" which, as you point out, you should not do.
I agree that people probably will not deal with a relative seeking drugs in a perfect way that allows them to continue the relationship unaltered. "Sorry you feel that way" does not change that dynamic at all. Probably nothing you say will, but you can at least try.
2) You are being burned at the stake by a social media mob: This is the case I didn't consider. And I want to be very clear here that I understand the impulse to respond by acknowledging feelings and expressing a hope for reconciliation with the mob that is currently lighting the pyre. But I want to be equally clear that you SHOULD NOT DO THAT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!
Treat this situation as though you are in court and a prosecutor is questioning you. Do not equivocate. Do not hope for reconciliation. You can nuance your position but only in a way that you truly believe. Anything that looks even kind of like an admission of guilt, or even an acknowledgement of the humanity of your accuser, will be used as further proof that you deserve the flames. Once you have been burned, your conduct during this ordeal will be used to determine how future people interact with you. An acceptance of guilt, or even an expression of sympathy will simply seal the truth that you did something wrong and deserved what happened to you.
Now if you actually did something burning-worthy, certainly apologize and make it clear how you will change your behavior in the future. But otherwise, either shut up or defend yourself.
> Once you have been burned, your conduct during this ordeal will be used to determine how future people interact with you. An acceptance of guilt, or even an expression of sympathy will simply seal the truth that you did something wrong and deserved what happened to you.
But it's a fine line, impossibly fine, because even one bit of over-reaction will be used as evidence too. It's like the nightmare criteria that I've heard police can use in interrogations: they're guilty if they're too calm, or too emotional, or too quiet, or too talkative, or too passive, or too aggressive...
This is why almost all lawyers discourage their clients from testifying on their own behalf in criminal trials. The natural human reaction to being accused is to take partial responsibility for the few things you might not have handled perfectly and then offer an explanation for why you behaved the way you did. In interpersonal situations this is the best way to maintain a good relationship and receive grace or understanding.
In a situation where you're being accused by a party with a vested interest in establishing your guilt, even in front of a neutral audience, this normal reaction is just self-immolation. Any statement you give will *only* be used to hurt you. If you take responsibility then you're admitting guilt. And your explanation probably makes more emotional sense to you than it does to a third party.
There's a distinction in that most of the people I was advising were *guilty* and what they thought was exculpatory was actually just a pure admission of guilt. These were people with low intelligence and low emotional intelligence, who did not understand that just because they had a reason for doing something illegal it would not become legal.
With that said, even innocent people generally make things worse by speaking in their own defense, because the people they're talking to have a vested interest in proving their guilt. In almost all cases it's best to say nothing, even though it's unbelievably hard to do so.
Again, why do you need to express sympathy in the first place? The phrase already implies that you're looking down on them. That they're the ones being emotional and irrational. If you don't want to apologize, don't apologize. Either lie, change the subject, or if you don't care about your relationship with them, tell them to fuck off. All three options are better than this stupid, passive-aggressive line.
EDIT: Actually, I thought of one justifiable use of this line, and that's if you're a mafioso and you say it right before you kill someone. But I'm going to assume you're not using it for that.
The viewpoint expressed in this comment is extremely alien to me. Sympathy does not imply looking down on someone. It's a normal, beneficial reaction to someone going through something difficult. Being emotional is not a bad thing. And even if you don't care about your relationship with someone, it's preferable to not be mean anyway.
To literally answer that question, I would feel the need (and quite a strong one) to express sympathy because (and if! that doesn't necessarily apply to everyone) I care a lot about that particular person and their feelings, even if I believe that I did everything right and should not apologize.
Like, that statement isn't probably something I'd want to use towards a stranger in an online discussion, but I can certainly imagine scenarios where that feels the most appropriate thing to say to my mom or my kids.
Refusing to express any sympathy at all gives the impression that you *intended* to cause offense, or at least are extremely callous. ISYFTW is an attempt to say “I’m not totally heartless, I just disagree with you about whether I’ve done anything objectively offensive”.
I'm sympathetic to this view, speaking of sympathy.
I say: apologize already, it's no big deal to do that. People are so afraid that apologizing is accepting blame or responsibility or implies a commitment to change something. It's not and it doesn't. If you don't want to apologize, then don't pretend to. Expressing sympathy because someone got upset at something we said is patronizing.
What people mostly want is to be heard. So if someone is upset at something we've said, the most generous thing we can do is try to understand where they're coming from and then to find something in their experience to validate. And again, we can validate without committing to changing anything about us. If someone wants us to change our behavior, they can ask for that.
Validating what a person is saying is hard to do but incredibly valuable thing to learn how to do. The place to start is just to say back what you heard them say "It offended you when I said chipmunks are less important than weasels." And then they say, "Yes, I had a long close relationship with a chipmunk. I miss him every day." And then you say, "I can see how having had such a cherished chipmunk in your life that it sounded just now like I was minimizing how crucial chipmunks can be."
Anyway, the thing about showing someone you actually heard them is that there's no quick phrase to carry around because it's more a skill set.
> The phrase already implies that you're looking down on them.
I'd say that's "condescension", rather than "sympathy"? Sometimes they can be expressed with the same words, so it can come down to attitude and tone and facial expression, but I think they're two distinct feelings.
I think the point here is that this phrase cannot convey sympathy without condescension, so if your intention is to do that you should choose another one.
I think it's more about the meaning of the phrase rather than the particular words you use to convey it. Introduce "I'm blarg you glarg that way" and in 5 years we'll have posts saying that "blarging" isn't a real apology and everyone who uses it should feel bad.
Most people don't _want_ to hear "I've considered your point thoughtfully, but I still think you're incorrect". Obviously, they think they are not incorrect, and any sort of quick apology phrase won't change their point of view, so this will always upset them. The real way to get through would be to convince them you've seen their point of view - something not really possible in a sentence.
I think that is an important point: people who are complaining about how you made them feel want you to validate them and their feeling, and will be unhappy if you do not. There are probably benign reasons for that, but most commonly it is a power move to make the original actor lower themselves before the offended party. If the original actor doesn't agree that they have done wrong there probably isn't anything they can say to that effect to please the other person, because it isn't the feelings that are the point, but rather that the offended party wants it clear that their feelings trump the behaviors of the actor, i.e. that they are more important.
I am fairly certain about that, incidentally, because in my experience when people have a substantive reason to disapprove of someone else's actions they speak it and don't just claim to be offended. No one says "I find that very offensive!" when someone tries to steal their car, they focus on the fact that it is -their- car. Even kids respond "I was here first!" when someone tries to cut in line, not "it made me sad you did that!"
Seems like you don't think it's possible "validate them and their feeling" without also agreeing to shoulder the guilt for their feeling. With that attitude, how then do you deal with demands for validation? (assuming they're someone you care deeply about, you don't agree you're at fault, and they've (presumably) got reasons other than power tripping, etc.)
I think there needs to be a bit of clarity around what one means by "validate them and their feeling". If validate means "acknowledge you exist, and your feeling does too" you can do that. If validate means "acknowledge that your feeling is justified and a correct reaction; tell that person they are right" then no, I don't think you can if you believe you did not do something wrong. Part of being a rational adult is recognizing that your emotional responses are not always correct and correcting them. If the answer to "What would you have me do differently?" is actually feasible given prior state knowledge and situations, then yes, it is reasonable to express regret/guilt for causing their feeling. If it isn't, then their blaming your actions for their feelings is unreasonable. That doesn't mean it isn't worth coming up with ways to avoid the situation in the future, but it does mean that their blaming of you is wrong. (In fact by their logic you would be justified in saying "Well, I am offended that you are offended!", and in fact would be more so.)
Put another way, if someone you care deeply about is blaming you for upsetting them over something for which you think you are not at fault, you should examine (together) what could have been done differently to identify where the error lies. If there was nothing you could do differently given the situation, the correct behavior of the other person is to not blame you; their feelings against you are invalid/incorrect, and they should correct them. If you can do something differently then you should.
Does that answer your question? I am not sure I am putting my finger right on it; the phrase "demands for validation" strikes me as doing a lot of work and I am not sure I 100% grasp what is being meant.
I also have to say I've been befuddled by seeing "I'm sorry that your relative died" style expressions in English (or, even more weirdly, translated to Finnish - I don't think people used "Olen pahoillani" this way before English-languge influence!), and my natural reaction would probably be "It's not your fault. Then again, I'm not an English-native speaker, and it's probably many other non-English native speakers who are tripped by subtle nuances like this.
We've been using it that way for so long that everybody knows what it means, even if some of us think it's funny to pretend not to. However, if you said to a grieving speaker of English "I apologize for the death of your aunt," it would likely trip them up unless you said it with a thick accent.
I'm not a native speaker, either - but I at least have never seen or heard "I'm sorry your aunt has died". Many similar phrases, yes, like "I was sorry to hear about your loss", or "How's your aunt?" - "She died recently." - "Oh, I'm so sorry!", but if I heard "I'm sorry your aunt has died", I'd expect a "but" to follow, like "but you still have to deliver your work on time".
If it helps, I am a native English speaker who always got confused when people apologized for things that were very obviously not their fault and have nothing to do with them, but this is perhaps the Martian tendency in me. In "I'm sorry your relative died" situations I'd context clue into deciding they aren't literately taking responsibility, but sometimes with very anxious or guilt-prone people it's a hard to tell on the edge cases.
The problem is not confusion over whether or not sorry implies an apology, the issue is the implied meaning of the phrase. If you use the alternative expression I'm sad you feel that way, it is still disrespectful in a way that saying I'm sad your cat died is not. Imagine instead you said I'm sad your cat survived the person would probably be offended because they don't think you should be sad about it.
Should they be happy that you got triggered, instead of sad? If an uninvolved bystander said they were sorry you got triggered, would you think that was offensive? It really seems to me like being sad about that is clearly friendly and sympathetic, not offensive.
I think the implied meaning that people are upset about is "...but I'm not changing my position."
I think there's an important difference between "I'm upset because you violated the agreed-upon standards of politeness and courtesy" and "I'm upset because you didn't take my side", and that many people objecting to this phrase are mostly doing the second thing, but are pretending they're doing the first thing because the first thing is more sympathetic.
And I think that particular pretense is bad and they should stop doing it.
Hi Scott, thanks for including my comment. I take your point 100% on the Martian thing, I don't have a great comeback except (a) my basic point is I don't like people commenting on my emotions while they are happening, so as long as someone is owning that it's them that's uncomfortable with the escalating situation, I'm not that precious about the words exactly, I'd like to think a less Martian formula would emerge if people are experimenting. Also (b) any alternative to ISYFTW is going to feel a bit clumsy at first, like how new build houses just look wrong at first until the weather has battered them a bit. P.S My dislike of this expression has very little to do with online discourse. Thanks again.
[Edit: the trouble with sexual consent talk is that a clumsy turn of phrase can kill the mood stone dead. Whereas in an argument there's less to lose and more to gain from more precise speech]
"'Condolences' makes you sound like a psychopath."
I've been saying, "My sincerest condolences," and similar for years, and nobody has ever called me a psychopath, or ever taken it other than in the spirit in which it was intended. Maybe this is just the people I interact with.
I feel like being the kind of person who says "my sincerest condolences" is actually what lets you off the hook. Insert a stereotype here of a person who would never be expected to say that, and suddenly it seems out of place and politician-y. (I'm not making a claim that this is about stereotypes, it's more that I think the reaction Scott had is the imagination of some generic person saying it makes it seem weird and out of place)
I, on the other hand, often use “my condolences” in a tongue-in-cheek way (e.g. “I’ve been assigned to the project for Client X.” “Ugh, my condolences.”) — which makes it not a good option for me to use seriously.
Same here. Like yourself, I never received any pushback for it, and the people I said it to at least seemed to take it in the spirit it was given.
I guess "condolences" has a somewhat detached vibe to me? I feel like saying something a bit stronger in the event that I personally knew the deceased well. But it feels a bit fake to me to say something stronger if I never knew the deceased.
Like, if a friend's uncle or aunt passed on, and I never met that aunt/uncle, it would feel weird to me to get very emotional here. For that, "my sincerest condolences" sounds most appropriate.
My immediate thought on reading the original was that this was a gulf between cultures.
I think I'm a lot older than OGH. I'm also not American. We do things differently, or at least us old folks. Perhaps it's now the done thing in America to fall weeping onto the other guy's shoulder saying "I'm so sorry!"
Other people are somewhat more reserved. "My condolences", particularly if the other party is a relative stranger is about as demonstrative as I think you're supposed to be in public.
"Relative stranger" is roughly "Known them for less than half of the shorter of your respective lives".
Tone of voice and body language will make a difference though. Saying it like a Martian will not go over well.
I agree. If said sincerely and somberly, it totally works. I think it's the kind of thing that the person saying it knows whether they can pull it off or not. I know I can't pull it off and wouldn't try. But I'd welcome someone saying it to me.
> Perhaps it's now the done thing in America to fall weeping onto the other guy's shoulder saying "I'm so sorry!"
Where did you get that from?
In America you'd say "I'm so sorry" or "I'm so sorry to hear that", with the same delivery as you'd say "My condolences". How did you jump from that to weeping?
The reason it makes you sound like a psychopath is because it's stilted and Martian-like, not because it doesn't express enough agony. It's like greeting someone with "Salutations!".
Likewise, that was a weird snark. Hell my sister's husband's dad just died last week and I literally said "Hey man, I just heard the news. You have my deepest condolences" and it didn't feel weird nor was it received badly. I've always expressed condolences as it feels legitimate as I'm neither sorry nor sorrowful on some person i couldn't care less about dying.
Yeah same, I've seen it used quite a bit among coworkers, most of whom are of Scott's age or younger, and some are native speakers (psychopath status uncertain though).
> Suppose you are a college speaker, advocating a political point which you believe to be true and important. Someone in the audience says they’re triggered by it and now you’ve traumatized them. You want to express sympathy. But you’re not going to stop going to colleges and speaking about this topic. Maybe you won’t even change the exact text of your speech.
Well, maybe you in fact *should* try to find a way to express the same point without re-traumatizing people? After all you'd prefer not to cause harm to your listeners, right? Appologize for the form of your argument and try to phrase it better next time, without considing the substance of it.
Yes, the trap of being a better person than you could've been counterfactually.
I suppose, if such perspective feels horrible for you instead of inspiring, than not expressing any sympathy and being an honest asshole would be best for everyone involved. We would have less of a slur cascade this way.
I think the trap in question is that there is no end to what people won't claim is traumatizing or offensive. If you argue that the moon is a giant hunk of rock in space and not a glowing space being who spies on you while you get undressed at night, and someone decides that is offensive and triggering, what can you do? What can you do if the reason they are claiming such is simply that they don't like that you are saying the moon is rock?
There is nothing wrong with trying not to be needlessly offensive, but claiming offense/triggering/trauma is entirely at the will of the claimant and is untestable. As such it leads to infinite demands to reformulate the argument, effectively meaning it can never be made in any form.
The triggered have more crocodile tears than you have time to rewrite and redeliver your argument.
As someone who both tries very hard to avoid hurting others and also thinks it's important to stand on principal and not say untruths, I agree with this in theory.
In practice, sometimes an idea itself is both objectively true and subjectively hurtful. Some people are honestly, actually triggered in unreasonable circumstances. They're part of an insular culture, or they've gotten good results from victimhood and have subconsciously trained themselves to be fragile or whatever.
And it can be a subtle trap for conscientious people where "try to state an idea without changing the substance" ends up diluting or removing the substance. I'm not saying that you never consider changing your expression of a true idea. But often, very often, banning an idea by banning every potential expression of an idea is an actual strategy that someone is pursuing. That's why this post will get a lot of comments defending being a dick and offending people. It's a backlash to that trap.
I agree with this, and I think that the word “harm” is doing a lot of work in the parent comment. If someone expresses a political opinion that I find odious, then that causes me some disutility, but does it *harm* me?
And if we treat the expression of those opinions as a form of wrongdoing (as though it were a gratuitous insult), does that change to the culture cause a greater disutility?
> That's why this post will get a lot of comments defending being a dick and offending people. It's a backlash to that trap.
I think historically people were dicks first and then they found a clever rationale to it, instead of everyone being perfectly accomodating to each other in the first place. Sure enough, nowdays there are people who are somewhat traumatized by the politcorrectness. I'm ready to practice what I preach and try to use a less triggering phrasing while discussing this matter (in case this is the problem), if they are also ready to cooperate and do the same in other matters. The problem, of course, is that they usually do not treat this kind of accomodation as "cooperation".
> And it can be a subtle trap for conscientious people where "try to state an idea without changing the substance" ends up diluting or removing the substance. I'm not saying that you never consider changing your expression of a true idea. But often, very often, banning an idea by banning every potential expression of an idea is an actual strategy that someone is pursuing.
As someone who also deeply care about standing on principle and not saying untruths, I agree that this is a valid concern, at least in theory. One should be mindful about such possibilities and put actual effort into both not conceding the object level point without epistemic reasons for, and making it in a way that accomodates people that can be hurt by it.
When executed correctly this is the optimal strategy even when dealing with "people who have subconsciously trained themselves to be more fragile due to getting good results from victimhood" - you show them that it's possible to decouple the emotional hurt from intellectual truth, that they can not win the argument by being hurt, even though they are not dealing with some kind of monster who doesn't care about their suffering.
In practice, however, most of the time, people are not even trying to achieve both unoffensiveness and truthfulness. As you might notice from the other commenters, the idea itself appears to produce confusion and animosity. Some even go in their rationalizations as far as to twist themselves into thinking that traumatized folk are "evil" and then pat themselves for not "not capitulating to it".
This reminds me of the old problem of allocating tasks between three workers, one of which is a newbie who wants to do the easiest tasks and another one is a pro who would like to do different kind of tasks in order to prevent boredom, meanwhile if we want to optimize short term productivity, the pro should be doing only the hardest tasks. How people are eager to split into camps, arguing about the imporatnce of performance and job satisfaction, instead of thinking for a couple of minutes and noticing the optimal solution.
If your sincerely held political belief is that group X should be rounded up and sterilised/murdered, then you're the problem. If you're making an argument about the local sales taxes being too low/high, then you've done nothing wrong.
There are multiple levels in between - but ultimately most normal speech shouldn't be considered harmful to people who have turned up to listen to you.
No, I mean their teenage kids. The overwhelming vast majority of teenagers are unconvicted sex offenders, just like their parents. There is a giant cognitive dissonance disconnect in America between the law as written and enforced and people's everyday lives being criminalized.
If you have a teenager and you don't think they haven't committed the sex offense of creating or disturbing child pornography, statutory rape, solicitation of a minor, exposing oneself to a minor, exposing a minor to pornography, etc then you have no idea what your kids are doing or your kids are so sheltered they effectively aren't a normal teenager.
I mean their isn't a week that doesn't go but when my own minor teenagers don't tell me of a friend sending a nude (even if just a retransmission to mock) or a guy offering to expend resources to get sex (i.e. dating) or them demanding resources to maybe have sex (i.e. dating).
Under American law everyone is a sex offender basically, they just get selectively prosecuted. Like drugs, men, and homosexuals (past). But I'd bet if you put it to a poll people would overwhelming vote to execute sex offender and I'd relish their tears when their teenagers were all shot the following day.
Not at all. Prostitution is legally defined as expending resources for sex and in all 50 states that is a sex offense if one party is a minor. When you were under 18, did you never spend resources (gas, flowers, make up, dinner, prom tickets, a pair of nice pants, buy a girl a drink, TIME, etc) to get sex?
I went to prison for five years for literally paying for the Uber of a girl above the age of consent under that exact logic "you spent resources for sex because money is fungable hence by you paying for her Uber instead of her paying you commercially exploited a minor. You also offered your time and time is money (where they quoted my overtime rate at work)" so yeah, fk you, maybe you should get some real life experience with the legal system and see how corrupt it is.
I feel like you're over-inflating the problems with speaking like a Martian. While some people might initially find it off-putting, those who spend time with you will quickly adapt I find.
It of course makes more sense to talk like a "normal person" while you're around people you only expect to have one or two encounters with, but you also don't need to worry nearly as much about whether you correctly convey an apology to such people.
> I feel like you're over-inflating the problems with speaking like a Martian. While some people might initially find it off-putting, those who spend time with you will quickly adapt I find.
Well, yes. If you have a relationship with another person, then they will know how you talk. And what you say will be counted according to the message you send.
The problem people have with "I'm sorry you feel that way" is that it sends a very offensive message, to wit:
1. I understand that you object to something I've said.
2. You are wrong to do so.
3. There will be no discussion.
No amount of phrasing is going to cover up the fact that this is what you're saying. The message won't become palatable if you happen to invent just the right words, but that appears to be what Scott has in mind for the use of the phrase.
Is "I didn't mean to upset you", or "I meant no offense" the phrase you're looking for? It doesn't take ownership for any misdeed, it clarifies your non-hostile intent without walking back any of your actual points and, while I'm no great word-smith, to me it sounds like words actual humans say in real life.
Scott is looking for a pithy way to say “I feel bad that you feel bad, but I frankly don’t agree that what I did was in any way bad and I’d do it again”
Where does it admit fault? It's acknowledging that you've heard their complaint, and that the way they heard it was not the way you intended it. It's not admitting that the complaint is warranted.
Acknowledging someone's feelings and making it clear you hadn't intended any harm is an admission of fault? I disagree. If they take it that way, well, I can't control how someone else perceives my words. But the words do not imply fault. You have to look for it there to find it. And if you were looking for it, chances are, you're going to find it no matter how I chose to respond.
But I suppose the fact that there are such disagreements is part of why it's so difficult to communicate and engage with one another in a culture where everyone is looking to take offense and few seem to develop the faculties to cope with their own emotional reactions. 95% of the time people aren't trying to be mean or hurt each other. If you get hurt by something someone says that isn't *obviously* mean (like, deliberately denigrating), assume they made a mistake and hadn't intended hurt. Or, if your community is rife with this kind of communication that *is* meant as a dig, then it's time to find greener pastures.
“I meant no offense” doesn’t just acknowledge their feelings, it validates them. It’s implying “ah yes, I can see why you thought that was offensive and that I was trying to offend you, but I assure you I didn’t mean it that way”. Which might be the appropriate response sometimes! But not if they are being unreasonable (or deliberately acting offended in bad faith). It’s probably not a good way to answer an accusation of wrongdoing.
Unfortunately “fault”, like “sorry” is a somewhat overloaded word, but I’m trying to make a distinction between “at fault” and “blameworthy”. The former means merely that your actions caused a negative situation, while the latter means that you knowingly did something clearly wrong. “I meant no offense” is saying “I am at fault, but I am not blameworthy”.
Consider the following three examples that I think are more clearly phrased:
1) I’m sorry you are hurt
2) I’m sorry I hurt you, it was not my intent
3) I’m sorry I hurt you, I was wrong and I won’t do it again
1 admits neither fault nor blame. 2 admits fault but not blame. 3 admits both fault and blame.
To the rest of your post, I sympathize, but would argue that at the point you’re even considering saying “I’m sorry you feel that way”, you are not in a situation where you can trust the other person to interpret what you say charitably. They are already blaming you, acknowledging that you did wrong will make them demand recompense.
I can say "I'm sorry you are hurt; that was not my intent."
I believe I understand what you're saying about "I meant no offense" being an admission of some; the distinction between at fault and blameworthy isn't as stark, I think, as you suggest. What you call "at fault" I see little practical differentiation from blameworthy.
Unless what you really mean by "at fault" is "causal" or "contributing causal." My words may have literally been the trigger of my interlocutor's feelings, so they are the proximate cause. That doesn't make them the ultimate or even most important cause; merely the thing that provided the final trigger. I'm not insecure about the idea that my words caused their feelings in that manner, and generally wouldn't worry about that possibility unless I were talking to someone who is in some sense hostile or predisposed to taking offense to my words. And if that's the case, I'm not really sure it matters what my response is, how finely I split the hair on my lack of culpability versus my sympathy.
The more I think this through, the more I'm convinced that the only reason this question (what words do I use to mean "I feel bad you're upset" while deliberately not validating or accepting that upsetness in any way) is characteristic of a broken relationship or broken community. In a functioning, healthy relationship / community, no one gives a fuck if you use the phrase "I'm sorry you feel that way," because they will infer your meaning, and few bother to even use the phrase, because their base assumption is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. That is to say, I agree with you: if you are in a position where you're thinking about trying to be sympathetic without giving the possible impression that you're giving any ground, you're already in the shit. And if you are, there are no magic words that will get you out of the shit. You can only work through or walk away. If you'd like those words to be your opening to a discussion about it, then use words that will help you do that.
I hear what you're saying, but that's not what I get out of the phrase at all. It's admitting that you said something that a person did find offensive. And a person did find it offensive, or else you wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. It makes no claims one way or the other about whether or not they were reasonable to do so.
In this hypothetical, you made some statement. At least one listener was upset by it. Then you clarified that your intentions weren't malicious. Nowhere in that exchange do I see you saying that the listener's objections are valid.
Not to confuse the issue more, but take a different scenario where I say something, and a listener mishears what I say. Maybe I say "obstacle" but they hear "popsicle." I'm not validating their perception if I clarify that I actually said "obstacle." I'm not even implying that I stuttered or mumbled or was in some way hard to hear. I'm just correcting them on what I actually said.
I see "I didn't mean to upset you" as more similar to clarifying what I said than admitting any guilt. I don't even see the admission that it was reasonable to be upset, only the acknowledgement that someone was upset, reasonably or otherwise.
I just don't think we need to defend ourselves that hard. We don't need to be beyond reproach all the time. It's so easy to say "I'm sorry I upset you."
If we're worried that "I'm sorry" implies some specific commitment to change our behavior, I think that's something like anxiety about an imagined future. If someone wants us to change our behavior, let them ask. "Sorry isn't good enough! I want you to take it back and promise never to say anything like that ever again!" Okay, then that's a different conversation.
"I'm sorry I upset you" is not "You are right in your perceptions about this." Again, if we're anxious that someone will read it that way, then I think that's maybe a lack of confidence in handling what might happen later but very well may not. It's anticipating too much trouble and moving more defensively in conversation than is necessary.
If we say "I'm sorry" and the other person says, "You see I was right, no one should ever say a thing like that," then that's yet another conversation. We can say, "That's not how I see it. I'm okay with what I said. I saw that it upset you and I'm sorry it did. I still stand by it, and here's why..."
I’m fine with “I’m sorry I upset you”. “I *didn’t mean* to upset you” says “I did wrong, but it was accidental”. The first denies both fault and blame (although not as clearly as ISYFTW). The second admits fault, but tries to mitigate the blame.
> Scott is looking for a pithy way to say “I feel bad that you feel bad, but I frankly don’t agree that what I did was in any way bad and I’d do it again”
I don't think that's right. If that's the goal, there's nothing wrong with using the phrase in the full knowledge that what people are likely to hear is "go fuck yourself". That's pithy.
He seems to be saying that it's important to him that there be some way to sincerely convey actual regret at the psychic pain experienced by people who are outraged, while simultaneously delivering the message that their outrage is ridiculous and merits no response other than ignoring it. I don't think that goal is achievable.
I hang around very literal people, so sometimes I get the "Why? It's not your fault" pushback. My response is usually "Sympathy sorry, not culpability sorry." Depending on context, I might add "asshole." If that makes me a Martian, well, I guess I'll be ready when Elon builds his colony there.
“I’m sorry” really is a great way to express contempt. I realized some years ago that I am not great at trading spontaneous insults, or “chirping” as it’s called in hockey culture (I don’t trade insults much off the ice). I needed a barb that could be counted on to belittle and enrage any hockey player, in response to any insult. I came up with “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” It works every time. Leaves guys sputtering.
And I think it illustrates that we earthling-speakers are good at expressing contempt, and that the most sympathetic-sounding phrase can actually express contempt in real life.
Related: we earthlings are massive pattern-matchers and might perceive contempt in almost anything. We might be correctly interpreting others’ intentions or we might not. And we might be interpreting in good faith or we might not.
Do you never play the same opponents twice? If your insult is the same thing every time, it seems like eventually someone's going to think of a response.
I hadn't even noticed until the post (and this follow-up) that people really do disambiguate this phrase in this pedantic way. Side benefit of social ineptitude: not being correctly baited into such traps. I'm Sorry -> It's Not Your Fault -> I Hope It Gets Better, Or Related Blandities Clearly Expressing Sympathy And Condolences -> landmine avoided. With the right crowd, one can even turn it around on the receiving end: I'm Sorry -> Are You Really? -> laughtrack.wav -> awkward tension defused. Although really, the sort of person who plays such wordgames is generally not someone I care to be on good terms with anyway, so perhaps it's useful as a cheap sorting signal. Same as any number of other irritating linguistic tics making the rounds these days. "You can't have a healthy relationship if you don't communicate..."
One suspects generational affects (not effects, older people trying too hard not to be also use such sophistry to seem Hip), or a link to therapy culture, or any of the other Fully Generic Bogeymen...but this is unsatsifying since it doesn't really pose a causal mechanism. Prescriptivists want to know when the inflection point was! Gotta nip those frindles in the bud before Cascade triggers.
Repeating myself here, but: "I'm sorry we disagree" strikes the required conciliatory tone, is almost certainly true if not the whole truth, doesn't imply "I'm sorry you're a dumbass who is bad and wrong," AND sounds like something an Earthling would say.
And in cases where the person is not just wrong but acting badly (the drug-addicted cousin trying to extract money from you), not saying you're sorry for anything is also a perfectly valid option.
"That sucks" or "I sympathize" has had to replace "I'm sorry" in my marriage because otherwise we'll end up in an infinite "it's not your fault" loop :P This has also taught me the value of "you are forgiven" over "it's not your fault/not a big deal" when an apology is the intent.
After thinking about this a little more, I think there are actually three uses of “sorry”, not just two:
-Apologizing: “I’m sorry for eating your leftovers, I won’t do it again.”
-Sympathy: “I’m sorry (to hear that) your aunt died.”
-I wish I could help: “I’m sorry, I can’t let you into this area without a valid photo ID.”
The third one seems to be lumped in with the second, but I think the subtle differences between the two might be contributing to the disagreements around what the “non-apology sorry” does in practice.
And I think this third type is what we’re doing in an “I’m sorry you feel that way” situation, especially the kind that Scott is talking about, when it’s about expressing a belief or an argument that upsets someone.
For instance, let’s say I’m talking to my mother and she’s extremely upset that I don’t believe in God. I wish there were something I could do to resolve this, but at the same time, it’s not like I’m going to start believing in God. So the response is something like “Be that as it may, I don’t believe in God. I’m sorry.”
When I tell someone I can’t help, in a situation where they might expect that I can (intractable religious disagreement, letting them into a secure area), it feels like the “sorry” is expressing a different feeling than the “sorry” in the case of your aunt that I’ve never met. So the translation to “I am sad” might just cause more confusion.
The distinction between uses 2 and 3 is useful in thinking about this, but I’m not sure they are fundamentally different. Both express ‘Like you, I’m not happy about this’ and therefore put both speakers on the same side. ‘I guess you are sad about your aunt’s death and so am I’ - contrasted with the hypothetical where I am indifferent or pleased that she died. ‘I would like to let you in as you want but there’s a rule or a reason that you need ID’ - contrasted with the hypothetical where I am trying to keep you out.
I think the example of arguing with your mother about God is the real distinct case. In this case the message is: we are genuinely on different sides in this argument, but there’s a different question about whether you value your mother’s relationship/opinions/existence and on that question you do agree.
These counter-meanings of "sorry" tripped me up as a kid. Two cases I can remember:
1. Saying "sorry" for an accidental harm, like knocking someone over. As a young child, I didn't think it made sense to apologize for an unintentional act, because the apology implied some level of ownership over the action. But really the point was to express that you felt bad for what happened to the other person, regardless of your perceived role in it.
2. I didn't understand when people said "I'm sorry" at funerals, since they would only have reason to be sorry if they'd personally been responsible for the death of your relative.
(#1 got me kicked out of an ice skating class at age 4 because I stubbornly refused to apologize for accidentally knocking someone over)
I sometimes hate being on the receiving end of this phrase and it's when I think I actually am owed an apology and the other person disagrees. I think when this type of disagreement exists there is a problem in the territory that won't be fixed by banning specific phrases like this one. I do think that... this particular phrase is maybe particularly grating because it can feel like it's trying to paper over that disagreement or something?
> Ending on an etymological note - this is true! “Sorry” is not related to “sorrow”. According to Wiktionary, it is an old adjective form of “sore” (ie sore + y), and ultimately comes from an Old English word meaning “sad”.
This is what I'm seeing in etymological dictionaries too... but it is actually true? The same dictionaries give a derivation for sorrow as being from... a slightly different old English word with suspiciously similar meaning.
I mean they certainly came from words that were distinct over 1000 years ago, but are we sure they don't ultimately come from the same root?
Not that this has any relevance to any other aspect of the debate, but heh, it's interesting.
If you go all the way back to Proto-Indo-European (spoken 5,000+ years ago), "sorry" ultimately comes from *seh₂yro (“hard, rough, painful”), whereas "sorrow" comes from *swergʰ- (“watch over, worry; be ill, suffer”), which seem different enough in pronunciation and meaning.
It is possible (even likely), though, that the two words have influenced each other in the meantime to become closer in spelling, pronunciation, and meaning. For example, in Old English, "sorry" was "sāriġ" and "sorrow" was "sorg", so the first vowel of each word was written and pronounced differently from each other, whereas obviously in modern English the first vowel of each word is written and pronounced the same.
My favorite observation along those lines was an entry for the English prefix un-, which noted that its two distinct senses derived from different original prefixes that decayed into similar forms, at which point "similarity of sense between negation and reversal caused the two prefixes to become hopelessly confused".
As a speaker of a slavic language Czech, I used to found it confusing that "I am sorry" is at least sometimes seemingly used for both "Expressing regret" ("Mrzí mě to") and also "Expressing guilt" ("Promiň"). We have much less ambiguous terms for that, I am curious how is it in other languages.
I love hearing that. My impression from learning Latin language is that this distinction is clear in those languages as well. There seem to be at least: "I apologize" "Condolences" and "Pardon me" and the situations in which they're used are fairly clear.
I'm curious about something, and I hope it's OK to ask.
Does your expression for guilt have any connotation of regret? Is that optional? Does it convey something like "This is my fault, but I'd do it again if I had the chance"?
I’m 20 and I basically didn’t realize that I could use “I’m sorry” to express condolences until I was about 16 years old. Before then, “I’m sorry” only meant “I apologize”. I think this is somewhat common among my generation
I think it's pretty normal developmentally too. I don't think kids younger than 16 or so are expected socially to express condolences to adults. And between kids of the same age, they likely would have other ways of conveying sympathy.
Genuinely think "bummer, dude" might be a more socially successful and less hurtful response to "you have deeply hurt me and should change your actions in response."
2. Express disagreement, perhaps vaguely if you want to shut down further conversation.
This has more of a cognitive load for the speaker, certainly. But that makes it a mildly expensive signal. Some things are more valuable because they are more difficult. Though it's unfortunate for those without the current mental capacity to manage such a statement. (A group I fall firmly into when I am tired.)
Re: the first topic, I tend to like variations on "You have my sympathy" when "Sorry" feels like an apology and inappropriate. Obviously not a great option when the point of friction is a difference of opinion.
As a Catholic I submit that the Sacrament of Confession is useful here because it makes you pay: attention to what you actually mean. It's hard not to notice the difference between repenting and trying to say something nice to smooth over social situations. (Maybe there should be more depictions in fiction that don't involve guns, tape recorders, etc.)
Religion can bring some clarity to forgiveness too. "It's okay" is a terrible answer to an apology if taken to mean that the offense is okay. "We're cool" is better. Of course, the fun response when someone apologizes to you is "go and sin no more" but it might not be effective in, say, a marriage. I wish I had the guts to try it.
Almost certainly not mortal, because the three conditions are not present: grave matter, full knowledge, full consent. Let's say I'm proud of my opinions on the Norwegian Leather Industry, so that when you challenge me, it's annoying, and although I stay polite, I give off subtle cues you've pissed me off. Grave matter? No, I'm as polite as I can be given my enormous ego, no-one is getting violent or abusive. Full knowledge? We're talking seriously subtle cues. My dad used to scratch his neck when we pissed him off. Did he know? Quite possibly not, we all have these tics. Similar story for full consent. So no mortal sin - good for me! But clearly in that situation I don't have the right sense of proportion about these things. So there may well be venial sin, or just imperfection.
As Catholics humility should teach us we sometimes fail in the truth (e.g by making hasty judgements) or fail in charity when communicating the truth (e.g getting defensive when challenged) so an apology may be appropriate even if I'm not consciously aware I've done anything wrong - the subtext would be "I'm sorry for any venial sins or imperfections which have caused this situation to escalate".
"> Suppose you are a college speaker, advocating a political point which you believe to be true and important. Someone in the audience says they’re triggered by it and now you’ve traumatized them."
This is why I love trigger warnings. It puts the onus on vulnerable people to leave a conversation that might hurt them, not on the speaker to alter their behavior. If the listener's trauma was somewhat predictable, saying that you'll warn people in the future seems sufficient to say "I give weight to the notion that you were hurt, but I'm not going to alter my message."
It's funny I think trigger warnings are maybe more a comfort to speakers than to people with trauma. The research says they're not that useful because people with trauma can have such a huge variety of triggers and they can come up in literally any context at all. I can see maybe some limited content warnings for classes or lectures that get into disturbing topics -- sexual violence, child abuse, etc.
But if you're someone with PTSD like symptoms, the world can't be made to feel safe with trigger warnings. So maybe it's more for speakers to feel like they've "done something" and for everyone else who just would rather be prepared before hearing something disturbing.
> But if you're someone with PTSD like symptoms, the world can't be made to feel safe with trigger warnings. So maybe it's more for speakers to feel like they've "done something" and for everyone else who just would rather be prepared before hearing something disturbing.
The first part is my experience, too. And the second... yeah, I think it's more for the speaker's benefit, to make them feel good about themselves. I sometimes have to work hard to not interpret the "standard" politically-slanted list of potential triggers as a big "fuck-you" to people who aren't covered by them; that is, as a way of saying "if you suffer from these things, we care, but if you suffer from something else, you deserve it". But I suppose at those times I'm already partly triggered anyway. :-/
Right, that's another problem with trigger warnings is that they presume to cover "what's important" leaving anyone with other experiences in the category of "not worth mentioning." It seems better to me to acknowledge openly that people with for real trauma symptoms may be triggered by a huge range of things and none of them is more important than another.
At the point that we started trying to protect everyone from experiencing discomfort, I think we entered the wrong territory.
If there is a slur treadmill happening around this concept, is that the influence of victim culture trying to eat “there exists an accepted way to stand one's ground and retain mutual dignity when one party feels offended by proceeding in a certain direction”?
>The main complaint about this expression is that it’s “not a real apology,” and that’s true, it isn’t. The error is in thinking it is therefore a fake apology.
and further down you say
>Second, we need to figure out some kind of alternative and coordinate to protect it from being slur-cascaded in turn.
I think the reason that it's slur cascaded is that Aeon isn't quite right - it's not /automatically/ a fake apology, but it's very often used as one because it's easy to mistake for one.
Alternatives will get slur cascaded if, but only if, they're easy to mistake for apologies. So formulae like
"I'm afraid I'm not going to apologise, but I do acknowledge and regret the distress I've caused"
won't hit the same problems that "I'm sorry you feel that way" does (but they also won't serve the purpose it's mostly used for, which is making people feel that they've been apologised to without actually having to apologise to them, nearly as well)
"Suppose you are a college speaker, advocating a political point which you believe to be true and important. Someone in the audience says they’re triggered by it and now you’ve traumatized them. You want to express sympathy. But you’re not going to stop going to colleges and speaking about this topic. Maybe you won’t even change the exact text of your speech."
------------------------------
I get the desire to be sympathetic while standing firm to what you said. And sometimes it might be possible to do both. But in a lot of cases, it won't be. In a lot of cases, what is causing the trigger/trauma is not merely the way you presented the idea, but the core idea itself. The core idea is what is upsetting to this person.
In that situation, you either stand by your core point/idea or you don't. If you stand by your core point, then the person speaking out against it is not likely to be soothed by anything else that you say. You need to choose what's more important to you - not traumatizing the person who is triggered by you, or standing firm by what you believe. "How confident am I in what I'm saying here?" and "How important do I think my core point is?" might be good things to consider here.
Sometimes you just can't be both "Nice Person" and "Champion of Truth". Sometimes you have to choose between the two, at least in the moment. This doesn't mean you need to be a troll when you choose "Champion of Truth", just that you don't make futile attempts to sooth the situation.
That was quite the roller coaster. The first couple of highlighted comments made me think I had been using the word "sorry" wrong this whole time, that it's specifically a form of the word sorrow and doesn't at all express regret. Then the end pulls an epic twist where it's revealed that "sorry" and "sorrow" aren't actually directly connected like that ("Despite the similarity in form and meaning, not related to sorrow", according to the aforementioned Wiktionary). Looks like both of those meanings of the word are valid (at least according to Wiktionary and to other dictionaries), so it's entirely understandable when there are misunderstandings.
I found that part dubious... If “sorry” is from an old English word meaning “sad”, I find it very hard to believe it’s not related in some way to “sorrow”
Agreed, it would be quite a coincidence if there wasn't some minimal connection, like a forking point of their predecessor words. It wouldn't surprise me if they were just very distantly related, as opposed to entirely "not related".
I think the overcorrection of "I'm sorry" as condolences is related to a different misuse of "I'm sorry"--as a verbal tic to deflect judgment for an action, whether or not the action is actually regretted. "I'm sorry" as "please don't hurt me," essentially. I think it's probably not great for your psyche to go around compulsively genuflecting in this way, and if someone apologizes to for an unintentional behavior, I will call them out on it, even if I think they just mean "I regret that this impact you negatively," because I think it impacts *them* negatively to apologize for eg ticcing or incontinence (I work with kids with disabilities and adults with dementia so these are my central examples lately). I know others do this too, and I suspect that this behavior expanded to cover the sorry-condolence usage. My generation let "I'm sorry" get *way* out of hand in the sense I mentioned above and maybe this inspired some excess in reining it back on, which would explain the timing of the onset of "I'm sorry" literalism.
Now "sorry" is a little wrecked for me altogether. A word that's caused this much confusion and debate can't do the emotional heavy lifting of both apology and sympathy. It could have done one or the other, but it's broken and just always sounds tinny to me, even if I know it's sincerely meant, and I try to avoid it. As for what to say when something horrible happens, I favor basic emotional validation ("that's awful, I can't imagine how you're feeling" or "I was devastated when that happened to me"--validation, by the way, is conveying to someone that you understand them, not that you approve of them or that what's going on is good and they should do it more, and it's a surprisingly powerful rhetorical tool in practice) paired to the sentiment that I wish the bad thing actually had not happened.
"The idea was - sometimes women are uncomfortable with sex but too afraid to speak up, so men should directly ask “may I have sex with you?”. Or you could go even further - some women were comfortable with some sex acts but uncomfortable with others, so you should ask permission for each specific act: “May I put my penis in your vagina?”
This 100% solves the problem with no downsides - except that if any man actually did this, the woman would immediately suspect him of being a Martian spy. I’m not happy with the fact that this convenient solution wouldn’t work - just not deluded enough to deny it."
Honestly, this was one of the nice things about kink. You could just remind them of their safeword every so often to make it clear you'd stop if they asked you to.
Actually what happens in real life is you get arrested for solicitation and do five years because you tried to get explicit consent before wasting money on that Uber. Yes that really happened to me. My advice to any guy now is never get consent because all that does is opens yourself up to risk as solicitation is an effective strict liability speech crime whereas rape requires both intent and action which is harder to prove.
Wow, that's awful! I never heard of that. Thanks for warning me. Just shows how biased the system is against men.
I think more and more, I'm starting to realize some kind of men's rights activism should be the focus of the second half of my life. Not sure what would actually be effective though.
No. American law defines prostitution as expending resources for sex though it's highly selectively prosecuted or all of America would be in prison. A woman above the age of consent I was talking to for weeks mentioned she was horny and asked if she could come over and I pick up the Uber. I said sure as long as we were going to fk as I'm not a charity and not trying to waste my cash. She said ok, didn't show, and the next day I was arrested for solicitation and a year later a jury found guilty on my words alone. I was given five years no parole because God forbid I asked for explicit consent.
I'm sorry that happened to you, and thanks for explaining it to me.
My first thought was that asking for affirmative consent beforehand seems impossible. Although consent is not like a contract, it reminds me of an "unenforceable contract." If the woman had replied, "Sorry, I'm legally incapable of giving that kind of consent because I reserve the right to say no once I arrive," what would you have said or done?
I wonder if the norm that "asking for consent is unattractive" is itself downstream of the legal status of consent and solicitation.
Thinking about all this is making me rapidly lose what modicum of respect I used to have for that ancient metoo movement
The funeral "I'm sorry your relative died" example where they say "Why are you sorry?" is an emotional deflection because that person is uncomfortable with sympathy and hasn't got the social graces to cover for it so they say something pedantic instead. Pedantry is a common cope for social anxiety. They're not criticizing us for saying the wrong thing and there's no need to respond to it.
I think Americans used to have more social graces so that everyone would know to say "Thank you" when someone says "I'm sorry your cat died" even if the sympathy made them a little uncomfortable. I wonder if this is an issue in other English speaking countries or if things like it come up in other languages. Other countries seem to have more intact norms for social interactions, but I could be making that up.
That seems accurate to me. To be snarky myself, I kinda sorta blame people who encounter little true grief early in their lives, but observe much staged grief, and who reflexively imitate the snark found in their media.
Huh. I learned something about myself today. I wouldn't say "Why are you sorry my relative died?" but I definitely use pedantry to cover for social anxiety and should stop. Good call.
One way to practice shifting that is to orient more towards questions than statements when you talk to other people. Being curious and asking open-ended questions of other people and then refraining from the urge to want to tell other people all the things we know about something. Just practicing staying with other people's experience any amount more. We're all works in progress this way -- being open to trying other things is the whole ballgame and it sounds like you are that.
Yes, sometimes the corresponding phrase just becomes a verbal acknowledgement, "It's not your fault" falls into this for me sort of a way of saying "life happens" where as I would feel odd saying "why are you sorry".
"It's not your fault" feels like willful misunderstanding to me in the same way as "why are you sorry?" There's no way anyone is saying in this funeral situation "I'm sorry for my part in causing the death of your relative." We know this.
If a person wants a different kind of emotional deflection because "Thank you" doesn't sit right, one can say "This is life" or some other benign neutral thing to indicate "even though this is happening, I want you to know I'm okay."
Of course it's fine if someone says these things -- "it's not your fault" or "you've got nothing to be sorry for" or "you don't need to be sorry" -- because they're already dealing with enough if their loved one just died. We don't need to take offense or make a deal out of it. But it does read to me as immature, like if someone hasn't learned yet to accept a compliment graciously. It's just part of growing up that we learn to say things like "Thank you" cleanly without needing to duck or shift or be cute or react some other way.
I’m utterly shocked that anybody thinks that sorry is just an expression of apologetic guilt. The standard formula in British English to express sorrow after a death is “I’m sorry for your loss”, and there’s been no controversy about this for the very long time it’s been in use. It’s always been clear to be that the phrase comes from feeling sorrow. If you wanted to be a pedant you could go the other way - you could argue that feeling sorry (ie sorrow) isn’t the same as feeling guilty, so please apologise.
I checked with the people in my house and we all are. Let's do an informal poll. If you mean "really" in the sense of for real but not in the sense of very. Mildly uncomfortable.
In my case, it's not emotional deflection, I just don't think the vast majority of people actually do care that a relative of mine died. It's a subtle way to say "no thanks" to well-meaning but insincere expression of empathy. I don't expect anyone to care that my grandma died outside of my immediate family and my closest friends. It's totally fine for people outside those two groups not to care. I guess I could just say "thanks : )" but I feel like I already have to play along with enough silly fictions in every day social interactions and the death of a relative should be one of the few times where I don't have to pretend in order to spare others' feelings.
I got Scott's argument in the original post. I agree with it, and it was well written.
Still, it wasn't the post I thought, and hoped, he was going to write. I thought he was going to write a defense of "non-apology apologies." I really would have liked to see that. I suspect that non-apology apologies aren't quite as bad as people say they are and may be good in some way. I don't have the chops to flesh out what I mean, but I'd really like to see someone take a stab at it.
My wish, of course, doesn't mean Scott should write that post. It's his blog, not mine. Also: he might not agree that non-apology apologies are worth defending.
Unlike slurs, there's not really an appropriate replacement. And the hyperstitious cascade here only happens in the mind of those who are too therapy-cultured to recognize that a feeling is a state of mind and not base reality. I will not back down and you should not either. For the good of themselves and society, people need to learn that feelings are just feelings, and they can choose to feel a certain way or not about the fact that you disagree with them.
How did you get to the point where you needed to say that you're sorry they feel that way, in the first place? Presumably by way of a dialogue, one in which you and they were figuring out how to string words together in novel ways to convey specific thoughts in a specific context. In real time, one sentence at a time.
But when someone has been offended, suddenly this ability goes away? *Now* you can only communicate by reciting stock phrases? I'm not buying that,
Particularly because you just demonstrated that ability in two hypothetical cases, when you came up with "I apologize for stepping on your foot", and "I'm sad that your relative died". Both of which are perfectly adequate if that is indeed what you meant to convey, and avoid the ambiguity of "sorry", Did it really take you more than a few seconds to come up with either?
This is the point - Scott's original post takes for granted the ability to eloquently state a case for not doing something, but then just assumes it's impossible to manage feelings in a fraught situation without a stock phrase to do so.
I agree it's *hard* to convince your drug addict cousin to both continue their relationship with you and to stop asking you for drug money. I'd rate it as a black diamond social interaction ski slope. But that very difficulty makes retreating into a stock apology, especially one that has a documented history of *not working,* an even worse decision.
It's hard to say this without being stigmatizing but I get that there's a higher rate of autism, or just generally low cognitive empathy in this community. And that lots of readers are basically looking for easy tips on how to navigate these situations, not answers like "figure it out or you don't care."
But "a phrase you say every time this situation comes up" isn't available for this. Probably the best you can do is repeat exactly their words back to you, restate your case, and then end the conversation definitively - "I hear you saying that my speech triggered you due to the language I used, and I understand that upset you. I still feel that I am making an important point and so I need to use that language, but will keep your feelings in mind in the future. I wish we could agree on this, but I don't think we will." That may also sound Martian but I've used it a lot, and it basically works as well as any other standardized strategy.
I routinely have to tell people no and contradict them. When it happens that they could be upset, I say either "I don't want you to feel like I'm insensitive to (what you want or value)..." Or "I know you value x a lot." It's affirmative of their internal state rather than dismissive. At the same time it defends one's own position as separate from theirs.
Here's a way of reading why ISYFTW can be offensive:
We say "I'm sorry" in two different situations: (1) I apologise for something bad that I did - canonically, I stepped on your foot; (2) I feel sorrow for something bad that happened to you, which was nothing to do with me and I'm powerless to change anything about - canonically, your dog died. (2) is often followed up with a question, "Is there anything I can do?" because there isn't really anything; certainly there isn't any obligation on you or anything you *ought* to be doing now; but out of sympathy, you'd be very open to doing a favour for the bereaved if they ask.
ISYFTW is said after you did something which caused Zhang San to feel bad. And you're expressing sorrow. But the canonical sorrow version also carries strong implications of distance - it was nothing to do with me, and there's nothing I can do to change it. In this case, it was something to do with you, and you could change it. But you're explicitly telling Zhang San that their feelings are unconnected to you (which they're not), and that you can't change it - which in context can only mean that you're not willing to change it.
So you can read - and I think people do read - ISYFTW as a form of social distancing: telling people that their emotions are not your concern. That's a pretty aggressive thing to do.
"Sorry" can also be used to express simple regret that one is in a certain situation: "I went on the whale watch and the sea got rough and boy was I sorry I was on that boat." I think the "sorry" in ISYFTW is mostly that kind: I regret being in a situation where you actively object to something I'm doing that I think is fine. But because "sorry" can also mean "sad" it functions as a fig leaf on a sentence that means "you think something I did was wrong and hurtful and I don't, and I wish I was not having to deal with your reaction right now."
I think that defining any *fixed* expression of regret is what creates the conditions for a cascade. The best way to demonstrate the sincerity of the response is by customizing it to the context. Which demonstrates that you've actually paid attention to and reflected on what is going on, which demonstrates that your expression of regret is meaningful and not rote. "I wish I didn't have to upset you, but I just couldn't bear it if my money allowed you to OD." "If I'd known it would re-traumatize you I would have waited until you were absent to talk about it."
I feel like intonation matters a lot. Said right "duude, that sucks" could get you through a lot of these situations. I grant however, that a lot of this comes down to charisma and the ability to perform which isn't a scaleable replacement for a phrase, even though I guess I'm arguing for people with can get the manner right it in practice is.
Maybe there exists a kind of grammaticality/acceptability fine distinction on the emotional front. So if grammaticality is the more formal side, then "emotional grammaticality" for ISYFTW may be disputed, and emotional acceptability might be separately disputed but one person may feel differently about those, and different people will tend to have more "acceptability" disputes, just as with linguistic versions.
So then the emotional acceptability is judged negative by a lot of people, even (perhaps) while the emotional grammaticality might by judged positively, so this may be a case where we're watching a phrase on the verge of becoming emotionally unacceptable, just like many slurs have done.
Now that I think about, I don't think there can be any alternative to ISYFTW that works any better.
Like, suppose you do something that offends someone, like, in the example of the first post, you refuse to subsidize your family member's drug addiction and they get offended by this.
They in that moment, are not looking for compassion or empathy. They are looking for drug money. Any response that displays compassion but gives no drug money would be "offensive" to them. Maybe what they want, if they can't get drug money, is at least a reason as to why you won't give them drug money. since then they could argue with your reason. But ISYFTW is just patronizing, offers no reason and refuses the engage with the original grievance all together.
In fact, perhaps the fact that ISYFTW is considered "bad" makes it work better at it's intended purpose. If someone is mad at you for something unreasonable and you want to be nice to them and project an attitude of compassion and caring and validate their feelings but not their specific demands, what better way to do that then to give them a socially acceptable justification for their feelings of anger at you by saying this universally recognized "bad" phrase that doesn't actually imply any specific ill will towards them.
OK, wow. The net effect of reading this was to push me into thinking that your entire framework around hyperstitious slurs--of which I was already somewhat skeptical--is fatally flawed and unsalvagable. In particular reading this sentence felt like stumbling into an alternate universe:
"I think this is probably true in the long run - but if you make it too easy, they’ll just take the next useful word and do the same thing with it. "
That's not how language works! Oh my, is that not ever how language works. There's no "they" there. Nobody's deciding to take Perfectly Innocuous Phrases and Ruin Them for All Time, and CERTAINLY nobody is following a road map where they start in on the next phrase once the project of ruining the current one is finished. There's no plan, there's no intent, and I can pretty much guarantee that pushing back is going to do absolutely nothing except harm your ability to communicate effectively with other humans.
I don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of how language works, but this much I do understand: most of it is subconscious. Some quirk or facet of how the particular phrasing collides with our brain must have made people pick out "I'm sorry that you feel that way" as a useful vehicle for expressing condescension and passive-aggression. The kernel of truth in the Hyperstitious Slur schema is that this is self-reinforcing: hearing others use it that way make that usage more available and more central[1], so people will more often pattern-match it to condescension than to genuine sympathy. Pushing back against that processes is *technically* possible, but only in the same sense that pushing back against the tide with teaspoons is technically possible: the driving force behind the shift ISN'T conscious human attempts to engineer the language, so you're starting the fight at a massive disadvantage, and it's not clear that you can ever actually win.
Viewed from this angle, people telling you "don't use X, it's a slur" or "don't say it like that, it sounds condescending" are not enemy agents trying to engineer a language shift for nefarious reasons, they're helpful souls informing you of the possible disconnect between what you think you're saying and what your audience will think they're hearing. The only rational response--rational in the "rational agents should win" sense--is to take note of this info and shift your communication patterns accordingly. You SHOULD be a strict linguistic descriptivist: arguing that the word you're using REALLY means X when you know people will hear it as meaning Y is every bit as irrational as arguing that your bullet SHOULD have hit the bullseye instead of the outer ring. Don't argue with reality: improve your aim!
[1] For an innocuous example, picture the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the noun "strand." If it wasn't a beach, congratulations: you're among the vast, vast majority of English speakers who's heard that word refer to fibers more often than coasts. You didn't choose that centrality relation, and might not be able to change it even if you tried.
Of course there are. Most anybody with a modicum of power is eager to police language. Whether they're likely to be successful in the long term is another question of course. You seem to be making a crazily strong claim though, that nobody ever managed to intentionally influence how language is used, and while it probably isn't trivial to disprove, it's certainly far outside the Overton window.
"You seem to be making a crazily strong claim though, that nobody ever managed to intentionally influence how language is used"
I am not intending to make a claim that strong, no. But the words "nobody," "ever," "intentionally" and "influence" are doing a lot of work here. Consider the phrase "nobody ever intentionally managed to win the lottery." Obviously it's false. But "intent to win the lottery" isn't actually going to get you very far towards winning the lottery, is it?
Now, I don't think "winning the lottery" is a great analogy for influencing language. But something like "becoming famous" might not be a bad one. It's also not true that "nobody ever intentionally managed to become famous," but neither intent nor any amount of effort on your part will provide any guarantee of getting you there. The main thing you need to become famous is the right sort of skills and effort paired with the right sort of luck: if you're going to become famous by doing X, you need there to be an X-shaped hole in the social landscape for you to fit in. You can maybe, slightly, at the margins "create" an opportunity for yourself, but mostly that will look like a combination of chiselling a bit at a nearly-X-shaped hole to make it more X-shaped, and choosing your X to better match the holes that already exist. There are a LOT of ways you could try to become famous that will never, ever work, and even among the ways that could possibly work, the vast majority of individual attempts will fail. And I would venture to guess that MOST people who become famous aren't actually trying only or specifically to become famous: they're trying to do something else they want to do, of which fame is a happy (or sometimes unhappy) side effect.
So too with changing the language. It's possible to succeed, and it's even possible to succeed intentionally. But it's not possible to pick an arbitrary direction and succeed intentionally in that direction. Scott's mistake is that he's picking the wrong sort of direction, the distinctly wrong sort. The entire reason he's picking the direction is because there's a strong trend in the opposite direction: noticing the trend is really strong evidence that the opposite direction is unfruitful. It's like noticing that people are starting to become famous as rail barons, and responding to this information by investing heavily in horse-drawn overland transport businesses. No amount of money you can throw into it is going to reverse the process by which the horse is becoming obsolete AND thinking that the rail barons themselves are the cause of that incipient obsolescence is making a pretty substantial mistake in understanding the world.
I wrote a more detailed view of how I think linguistic change works as a reply to my first comment: hopefully that provides more clarity.
I think there's two different things going on here. One is 'bottom-up' and the other is 'top-down'.
'Bottom-up' is, yes, the organic development of language. It's words and common phrases falling in and out of fashion due to how most people feel about them. This has probably been going on as long as language itself has existed.
In recent decades, there's been an increasing push from people in power and institutions to take control of this process, causing a 'top-down' version of this process. Sheryl Sandberg's 'ban bossy' campaign is a good example of this. 'Bossy' was not a particularly contentious word before this campaign started, and without this campaign, it would likely have remained a non-contentious word. Other examples of this are commonly understood and commonly used words that are banned on certain social media sites, like 'kill', 'rape', and 'pedophile'. "Unalive" has legit become a thing, at least on the internet, just because of this TOP-DOWN attempt to stop people from using the word 'kill'.
Scott is correct to notice these top-down efforts to change language and how they can be harmful. But I think he's made a mistake on the specific case of "Sorry you feel that way". I think opposition is less top-down than bottom-up. I think most people genuinely dislike the phrase. It's not just a small minority of influencers trying to squash it in a top-down fashion, it's something that probably most people dislike for various reasons.
So basically, Scott is right about hyperstitious slurs, it's just that "sorry you feel that way" isn't really one of them. Nobody likes insincere apologies, and probably most people view "sorry you feel that way" in that light, regardless of the intent in any specific instance.
"Sheryl Sandberg's 'ban bossy' campaign is a good example of this."
I think this is an excellent example, thank you! I will notice the word "bossy" is still very much in use, and even in heavily left-leaning spaces (at least, the ones I frequent) doesn't even seem particularly put-upon.
The most I can credit this effort is to notice that there IS an idea that describing a woman as "bossy" might be applying a sexist double-standard in many cases. However, I'm skeptical that Sheryl Sandberg (whoever she is) was particularly influential in this idea coming into existence. Rather, I think she noticed a thing about the connotations and the usage of the word--a thing that was there and true before she noticed it--and decided to try this particular strategy for being loud about it (for whatever mix of reasons motivates her). I don't think she *created* those connotations and usage: they were there to be noticed, undoubtedly other people were also noticing them and the best one can reasonably credit her with is a small amount of helping to create common knowledge.
If two decades from now the word "bossy" is in-general considered verboten, I'm prepared to eat some measure of crow. If history remembers Sharyl Sandberg as being responsible, I'm prepared to eat A LOT of crow.
"Other examples of this are commonly understood and commonly used words that are banned on certain social media sites, like 'kill', 'rape', and 'pedophile'. "
Also great examples, but also not for the reasons you seem to think. Social media companies have a pretty astonishing amount of power, but their top-down efforts both plainly fail at what they're intending to do, and succeed at things they're not intending.
Consider "kill" vs "unalive." I cannot psychically peer into Mark Zuckerberg's skull, but I really, really strongly suspect that it was NOT the intent of him or anyone else at Facebook to create this word replacement. If it was, of course, then they're pretty definitely failing: in any context other than social media sites that ban "kill" people use the word "kill" in the same ways and manners and with the same frequencies as they always have. I don't think there's even the tiniest chance that the word "kill" gets removed from the modal English-speaker's vocabulary anytime soon, nor do I think social media is going to cause much shift in how it's used in other contexts. "Unalive" has started to be used on its own somewhat, but it's not really used as a one-for-replacement for kill. Played the most straight it's used as a euphemism the same way "neutralize" was, and of course that and other euphemisms already existed. But I expect most of the usage is more for purposes of ironic emphasis: using a quirky, non-standard verb makes it stand out more, and the fact that (at present) it evokes ham-handed social media censorship gives just a little extra touch of edge to whatever you're saying.
But of course, trying to effect that word replacement was almost certainly NOT their goal. The goal in those sorts of bans seems to instead be to try to bar certain sorts of discussions, particularly discussions of violence, in a scalable way.[1] And of course on those terms in failed miserably. People still talk about whatever they want to talk about, they just have to do it in a slightly more inconvenient way. And so again, even the fairly massive amount of power that companies like Facebook and the company-formly-known-as-Twitter wield[2], when applied to trying to change the people's language-use-patterns, still ends up looking embarrassingly like pushing back against the tide with teaspoons. Maybe Musk and Zuck are mighty enough to wield ladles instead, but the tide is still the tide.
[1] Very probably the REAL goal was some manner of legal ass-covering. "See, look, we tried our best to prevent violent incitement on our platform, but those dang violent inciters were just too clever and determined for us," or something like that.
[2] See, they can't even intentionally, robustly change their NAME, something they have complete formal, legal control over.
Trying to head off a certain sort of objection by sketching out how I think the process of languages changing DOES work, I present:
Agrajagagain’s Unprincipaled, Off-the-Cuff, Rectally-Sourced Theory of How Languages Evolve
(In which I loudly betray part of my educational background by my choice of description.)
I think you can model the current state of language as a point in a many-dimensional vector space, following the contours of some fitness function that determines how it changes over time. Not an especially mind-blowing observation, since you can model just about anything this way if you’re determined.
Anyhow, I think at any particular time, changes in the language mostly follow the contours of the landscape in the way you’d expect: they’ll strongly tend to go down steep slopes and strongly tend to go up steep slopes. But there’s also a decent amount of random noise. Importantly, the contours of the landscape are partly determined by underlying features of human neurology, but also partly determined by culture, which is in turn partly determined by environment[1]. So if, for example, you take a community that all speaks the same language and divide it into two parts and wait a few hundred years, the divergence in their languages will partly be determined by random noise and partly by the cultural differences induced by the split, and good friggin luck telling which one is which. Part of what makes this all difficult is the landscape is mostly invisible: you can deduce some of its features by observing recent changes in language use, and some by squinting hard enough at your own brain: Scott’s “if you say that you’ll sound like a Martian” is a good example of doing this to determine where a particularly steep slope lies.
How do people deliberately trying to influence language fit in here? Well, humans are certainly aware enough of language and its uses, and good enough at thinking meta, to notice the process and attempt to influence it. But “attempt” is key. I think most of these attempts are going to be pretty much indistinguishable from random noise. Which is to say, IF an attempt succeeds, and that’s a very, very big if, it will succeed as much by luck as by human effort. Particularly, it needs to be lucky enough to be pushing on the language in a direction that it can possibly go. Maybe an exceptionally powerful human–exceptionally powerful in ways that specifically relate to language use, like a dictator with total control over his country’s national media–can push a language up a shallow slope, for a while. If it’s a short, shallow slope then perhaps they will manage to crest it and reach more level ground where they don’t have to push, at least for a while. But I don’t think anything short of mind control or sci-fi dystopian levels of media and social control are ever going to push language up a long, steep slope. Most of the time people “intentionally” influence language, what they are really, actually doing is noticing that the landscape is particularly flat in some particular direction, and pushing in a direction that’s easy to go. You have to be lucky to notice that at all, and continue being lucky in having the direction stay easy, not run into any steep slopes going somewhere you don’t want and in not having noise or other peoples’ efforts deflect things in a way that screws you up[2].
So what successful efforts to influence language might look like are:
1. Creating a new term for something that people were badly wanted to talk about but lacked the words for.
2. Coming up with a “catchy” new way to say something people were already saying. “Catchy” on the meta level meaning that it’s got a nice, downward slope in that direction. On the object level this seems partly to be related to the actual auditory sound of the word/phrase (especially brevity) and partly to what other linguistic or social ideas it evokes associations with.
3. Pointing out something that a bunch of people had already privately noticed about language: “saying what everyone’s thinking.” Because the person pointing it out is helping create common knowledge, it might LOOK like they’re having a large, intentional impact on the language, but in fact they are not. Their efforts can only work because the system is ALREADY primed to leap into a new state: they might influence the outcome a little bit, but the change would almost certainly have happened regardless.
I think Scott’s entire schema around superstitious slurs comes from seeing 3 in action and mistaking correlation for causation. It’s only possible to “say what everyone’s thinking” when people are already thinking it. A word becomes a slur mostly because the landscape favors pejorative use over neutral or positive use. Once you’ve reached a point where people are pointing out its a slur and trying to get people to stop using it, it is FAR TO LATE to un-slurrify the word. The slurry his already mixed up and coursing downhill. That process is the REASON people are going around insisting its a slur, not the CAUSE of it: to a first approximation nobody gets a grudge against a word that was perfectly innocent or even mostly innocent. I’m emphatically not claiming that would-be language police have pure, selfless motives, mind you. But even the worst of them are still mostly, well, police not legislators: they’re mostly trying to enforce the law as they see it (which can be absolutely be done in harmful and obnoxious ways) not to make a new law out of thin air.
And often people who do this are just mistaken, and so don’t get anywhere. One example that comes to mind is the several occasions I’ve encountered people insisting that the word “stupid” is an ableist slur and shouldn’t be used. I cannot adequately convey the depth of my contempt for that position, but even these people aren’t pulling their crappy position out of literally nowhere. “Stupid” DOES get used pejoratively, quite a lot, and some of the usages DO pretty unmistakably show contempt and disdain for the cognitively disabled. But those aren’t the only, or even the primary usages of the word: it is load-bearing in modern English in a way that more distinctly slur-ish words like “retard” are not. Cutting “stupid” from our vocabularies would be quite inconvenient, and impact a whole lot of conversations that have nothing at all to do with ableism. And so I’ve never seen these people gain traction, and don’t ever expect to. I’ll admit that I still find myself inclined to push back, but it has more to do with not wanting to see their particular brand of failure cluttering up the discourse: I don’t really believe I’m going to influence any shift around the word use one way or another.
[1] Which of course is ALSO partly determined by culture and even language…arg. Complex things are complex.
[2] Which I want to stress might NOT at all look like pushing back in the opposite direction. It might take the form of a completely orthogonal push, or even one almost-but-not-quite aligned with yours in ways that produce results you don’t want. A totally not-at-all mind-killing example that came up recently is the word “woke.” It used to be used exclusively in leftist circles and have a clear-ish, narrow-ish meaning that make it at least somewhat good at describing some things. At some point it got popular enough for people outside the left to notice and some people (I assume mostly right-wing media personalities) discovered that a direction they could push it that was both very useful to them and (apparently) extremely, extremely easy. Probably not even an upward slope so much a small lip in front of a downhill ramp. The result is a word that means something totally different than it meant a few years ago, to the point of being almost meaningless. Everybody on the left seems to implicitly understand that well, this is what the word means now and there’s no turning back the clock: their use of it is almost exclusively ironic and/or mocking, when they use it at all.
Some of that is a result of the modern psychology movement though. CBT is big on never saying you are sorry unless you intentionally did something as otherwise it's just negative self talk. A lot of people are exposed to CBT, especially people that shape cultural narratives, hence I'm guessing a bunch of that "why" is coming out of that. I never say sorry anymore because I simply don't feel sad over something I had no control over so why would I say it. You can say politeness but many people internalize that sadness in a way that's harmful as they get anxiety about not feeling sad for something they shouldn't feel sad for anyways.
I don't know what to say that takes the place of the pro forma sorry anymore hence now I just come off as a giant aggressive asshole. I mean I am anyways but before I at least didn't come off that way. Now I just say "my bad, accident" or "eat a dick" if I accidentally do something and you get offended.
<Some of that is a result of the modern psychology movement though. CBT is big on never saying you are sorry unless you intentionally did something as otherwise it's just negative self talk.
Wait, I am a psychologist and I do CBT. I have never even encountered the idea that one should never say they are sorry unless that did something intentionally, and I have read books of theory & books of practical advice for practitioners, and also several self-help books I was thinking of recommending to patients. CBT isn't even mostly concerned with what people say to other people -- it's about what they're saying to themselves. And besides, simple common sense tells me, you, and everyone else that if you do harm by accident, you should still apologize -- like if you spill your coffee on someone because you stumble, or scrape their car while parallel parking, or call them by the wrong name. Of course you should say you're sorry! WTF??
Well I've been through four courses of CBT with four different providers over twenty years and universally they were all explictily against saying sorry so at least anecdotally you are in the minority in your field.
Wow. When they gave you that advice, did it seem reasonable to you, or did you argue? I mean, what about the situations I gave as examples?
Also, if you intentionally do something the other person does not like — seems like in many cases it would not make sense to say sorry. If I’m supervising someone and give them a project to do and they make clear they don’t want to do the project — it would be weird to apologize. I can see asking them why they don’t, then suggesting ways to make it less difficult. I can see basically saying, “well, this is a job and part of what you’re paid for is doing some unpleasant tasks.”. But why would I apologize?
Did the other things these therapists said seem sensible?
No it didn't seem reasonable but if you are in CBT obviously you have been convinced, or convinced yourself, (well short of the one time it was court ordered for me) you have cognitive errors (or else you wouldn't be in a CBT) hence you can't really trust your own cognition. I'm with you sometimes a meaningless pro forma apology is just a social nicety but they were adamant that isn't the case in the mentally ill population, only the normal population, in a manner similar to "anxiety is normal, anxiety in anxious people getting treatment isn't therefore you have a different bar for normal behavior". To use a hypochondria example "a normal person having chest pains should seek medical advice. A hypochondriac having chest pains should not given they have already been to the ER, cardiologist, etc for chest pains 150 times that year including the previous night and has a clean bill of health and going a 151st time is totemistic hence just reinforcing your negative cognitive behavior"
To your second part, you apologize (for intentionality) because you should have empathy (feel sad) for harming (or causing distress) the other party even if intentional as apologies (sad) aren't related to sorrow (as this entire blog post and comment section has made clear). So to all (minus court ordered) of my psychiatrists and psychologist points (and these were all CBT specialists, not generalist doing CBT) apologizing (feeling sadness or the low self esteem need to social desirability signal a feeling of sadness) is negative self talk as you have no control over a circumstance you had no intentionality over so quit doing it.
An example here (to your case) is parents who punish their kids. As a parent you should feel sad you spanked your kid doing something egregious enough to warrant it but likewise you still have to do it to teach the lesson. And you shouldn't avoid doing it because your kid will cry hence the apology.
PS: To your last point, nothing a psychologist has ever said to me seems reasonable as the field IMHO suffers giant agency and confirmation bias problems. The only mental health people that ever said anything that made sense to me were psychiatrists in-between their drug peddling time.
>To your last point, nothing a psychologist has ever said to me seems reasonable as the field IMHO suffers giant agency and confirmation bias problems. The only mental health people that ever said anything that made sense to me were psychiatrists in-between their drug peddling time.
That about the psychiatrists making more sense -- I'm not surprised to hear it. If they see their area of expertise as meds, then when they talk to the patient about non-med things they're not trying to Do Therapy, they're just using common sense and general friendliness, both of which are good stuff. It seems to me that you got a weird and unlikely-to-be-effective version of cognitive therapy that didn't even conform to common sense. Was it helpful at all, nonetheless?
"it seems to me that you got a weird and unlikely-to-be-effective version of cognitive therapy"
I don't believe that to be the case, one of the practitioners was pretty well regarded in the field and even had positively review book on CBT for his fellow practitioners, another was out of the US VA system which has a well known and lauded CBT program as part of their PTSD services that is big on repeatability, supposed EBM, formulaic, etc. The third I would fully agree was done by a a quack as was the fourth (court ordered).
As for did I get anything out of them, yes (good) and yes (bad) but overall they weren't effective treatments. Later EMDR got me half way and acceptance (per psychiatrist) the other half so I'd go as far as to say I'm now as good as I'm ever going to get which isn't great but vastly better than the previous three decades.
On the CBT positive column it at least provided me to tools to articulate my issues in a rational and specific manner using terms other mental health professional would understand as well as educating me on recognizing the why of many thing but that was it. On the CBT negative column it destroyed my life as it taught me to recognize when I was catastrophizing and so I did except the catastrophe actually happened and I distinctly remember at the time I was going through the catastrophizing tool drill and then afterwards I was like "thank you CBT for destroying my life"
On the psychiatrist thing, I don't really agree. I think what psychologists miss is some things really are pathological and therapy isn't the answer, i.e. hypnosis isn't going to cure your schizophrenia, talk therapy isn't going to resolve your anxiety issues which were brought on by a neurodegenerative disease. I will say my psychiatrist was the only person in thirty years that helped me with any modem of success and no I'm not drugs in a meaningful way (ad hoc), not his prescription but his actual mental health advice and solution.
This is one place where all that low-IQ "low decoupling" wins out. A small set of finely tooled phrases to contend with every possible situation doesn't exist, nor should it. Read the vibes and do your best. (That said, I've never had a grieving English speaker challenge me on "I'm sorry for your loss." Generational thing?)
The college speaker scenario, especially, reads strange to me. If you're in that position, then yes, you probably owe your audience member a few custom words in response, whether it's empathetic or dismissive. I agree with David Khoo – this can include (if genuinely felt) regret for the part where you, yes you, caused emotional hurt, even if it was necessary to do so for some theoretical higher cause. Failing that, go with honest scorn, but I don't understand the fear of committing any kind of apology at all.
I think in many (most?) cases, those saying it's impossible are speaking in bad faith. They know it's possible, they just don't care. They want the change of behavior and/or the admission of fault, and the impossibility claim is an attempt to morally coerce one or both. After all, if you have such a psychopathic lack of empathy that you don't feel sad for hurting them, they'd be pretty justified in calling you a horrible person; and, lo and behold, the only way to demonstrate otherwise is to bow to their will and judgement.
> sorry and sorrow are not related words and do not mean the same thing.
Maybe the words' origins came by different paths, but when the conflation is as old as Shakespeare, I think you can be confident the meanings are indeed related.
I can't help but feel like you're trying to solve a social problem with a linguistic approach.
Usually when a phrase gets a second meaning, it does not imply that people are stupid - it means the phrase used to express something else than it sounds like.
"I am sorry you feel that way" feels like 'fuck you' because you imply exactly what it says - you are sad that the other person does not share your internal logic and therefore got upset. You're not sorry you said what you said, you're sorry they can't see your point. And maybe you are legitimately sad - like when my racist relatives don't agree with me. I am sad they are bigots, but when I say 'I'm sorry you feel that way' I am absolutely condescending them. They are wrong, I am right, and their feelings are indeed not really valid.
This same phenomenon would happen with any other phrase you're using. What you really need is an acknowledgement of the feeling, and the strength to stand the awkwardness of having upset someone. So this is more of a "I can see that you're upset" or "I know this line of thinking makes you uncomfortable" kind of situation. You feeling sad doesn't make them feel better; you expressing your sad is to make yourself feel better. If you wanna talk about how you're sad, it's a good thing to say. If you don't, it doesn't really concern them - so really think about what you're actually trying to say!
"I don't wanna fight"? "I really dislike that we disagree on this topic"? "How you view the world makes me sad because it makes me feel distant from you/ like you have some assumptions that really suck"? "I am uncomfortable, and I still like you, even if we disagree on this"?
<You are sad that the other person does not share your internal logic and therefore got upset. You're not sorry you said what you said, you're sorry they can't see your point.
Yes, I agree. ISYFTW is a refusal to take someone's complaint seriously, coupled with a use of the word "sorry" that is quite unlike the use where it means *sad.* I don't think the "sorry" in "sorry they can't see your point" means anything like *sad*. Seems to me that in "sorry they can't see your point" the "sorry" is the same "sorry" as the one in "I ate clam chowder right before the whale watch and once the seas got rough man was I sorry I'd eaten it." "Sorry" express regret, unhappiness with a situation, a wish that something was not the case.
As for the emotion side , in the examples people are using -- Scott's 3 examples, you with your racist relatives -- it's unlikely the person whose point the others do not see is mostly feeling sad. Irritated, insulted, hurt and frustrated all seem likelier.
After reading this, I like “I’m sad that you feel that way.” It is not a fake apology, and it expresses sympathy.
I expect that it will, however, lead to more arguments. The “fake apology” part of ISYFTW allows the person to pretend to believe your fake apology if they do not want to escalate. People use vagueness all the time to allow face-saving options. “Would you like to come upstairs to see my etchings?” allows everyone to pretend that there was no sexual advance (example from Steven Pinker). ISYFTW allows everyone to pretend that the offense has been satisfied.
So: “sad” is more direct and honest, “sorry” offers more conciliatory vagueness but can really piss off a subset of people who think “fake apologies” are the worst. I guess one just has to read the situation.
And yes, per M-W, it orgonates from "sore": "Middle English sory, from Old English sārig, from sār sore" Contrast with "sorrow," "Middle English sorow, from Old English sorg; akin to Old High German sorga sorrow"
When someone accuses you of wrongdoing, your options are to admit wrongdoing or deny it.
Saying *only* 'sorry you feel that way' is neither path, it's trying to skate by on confusion between the two meanings of 'sorry' to get out of the situation without accepting either fork.
It's totally fine to say 'sorry you were hurt by this' *in addition to* a defense of your position and declaration that you won't be changing it or taking anything back. In which case, the person may still be mad at you, for the same reason they were mad at you originally which you refused to take back.
There are a variety of jurisdictions that have Apology Acts, which clarify that saying "sorry about this car accident" is not an admission of liability.
This is good, and also stomps all over people insisting "sorry" is an admission of fault socially. If I say I am sorry your grandmother died, I am not admitting to her murder, and anyone who thinks I am is being a dick.
It acknowledges that some people take it that way, while legally codifying that it doesn't mean that to everyone. That's hardly saying "it would always mean an expression of fault." If it always meant fault, then there would also be no purpose to the Act.
No, it legally codifies that it doesn't mean that in court. That is a completely separate question from what the phrase means; it is relevant purely to what conclusions a judge may openly draw. It isn't even binding on a jury.
You're right that there is variation in how the phrase is used. But you're completely wrong about this:
> This [...] also stomps all over people insisting "sorry" is an admission of fault socially.
It doesn't and can't do that. Legislation does not affect how people understand things.
It acknowledges that a jury is likely to consider it reasonable to consider such statements to be evidence of guilt or liability, which requires that *most* people take it that way, even when there's someone explicitly pointing out that maybe it wasn't meant that way this time.
This seems a worthwhile time to note that affirmative consent is the law around consent to sex in a criminal context in Canada. Fortunately, the Supreme Court did get around to clarifying that you can consent by conduct (i.e. your actions). They did that some time in the last five years or so. It's been the law since the eighties.
It is not a good thing when you give people a choice between acting legally/morally or effectively, because it makes moral and ethical people ineffective and the immoral and unethical ineffective.
This series of posts has been strange because they seem like they’re missing the cake to talk about the icing. The cake being - actually engage with the others, with your whole being, and hold the tension without breaking contact, surrendering to them, or escalating.
Two people hold strong conflicting, emotionally held beliefs - there is a lot of tension here and that tension could be productive - there could be a real exploration, there could be empathy, there could be personal narrative, there could be vulnerability and connection. It could end up being a powerful moment of transformation for one or both parties, if people can authentically engage.
And if you say “I’m sorry you feel that way” (and end there), it suggests you want to end the tension without any resolution - like you see no potential value to engaging with the other person. That’s disappointing.
Almost-this. I'd modify it to "some `(person, complaint)` pairs aren't worth engaging with." There exist people (by some measures, most of them) who are worth engaging with *in general*, but not under all circumstances. For example, over the last ten years or so I've found that rather a lot of my friends and family aren't worth engaging with on political subjects. That doesn't make them not worth engaging with the rest of the time.
A large part of the value in having "a non-expletive statement to disengage" lies in cases where the person is worth it even if the interaction isn't. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of good ways to signal "I still care about your preferences even though other factors won out in this particular case." Canned phrases for it, like the one in question, are easy to fake. Easy to fake signals will be faked until they no longer function as a signal, and probably beyond. I don't know the true history of the phrase, but something like that might have happened here.
>Third, we need it to be common knowledge not to cooperate in pushing the slur cascade even faster than it would already go.
I don't think this is a slur cascade in the usual sense (latrine -> water closet -> toilet -> bathroom -> restroom...).
I think the issue with "Sorry you feel that way" is not that it has two possible meanings, but that there are people who actively exploit the difference between them. People use it as a fake apology all the time, equivocating between two meanings depending on the reaction ("what more do you want? I already apologised!" or "I didn't say I did anything wrong").
Sentences like "I feel your pain, but I don't regret having said that," or "I apologise for saying that, and won't do it again" might be a bit martian, but they're direct. You can't pretend they have any other meaning.
"Sorry you feel that way" is like "reality is socially constructed" - too easy to exploit by equivocating between its meanings.
I think this search for a different term is a fool's errand. There's no special way of getting the sentiment of "I'm sorry you feel that way" across that's not going to offend someone in much the same way the specific words "I'm sorry you feel that way" do. Someone who feels entitled to a "real apology" is not going to be satisfied with any response that doesn't acknowledge a wrong was committed. It's easy to forget that many of us here value truth over social acceptance much more than the median individual, and what we may take to be intellectual honesty and being precise with our language, others may take to be stubbornness and pedantry. As it's been explained to me by more than one ex-girlfriend, the actual sin is not the language used, but the fact that "you care about being right more than you care about my feelings."
Of course being American orientated the commentary on this site doesn’t get the other meaning of “I’m sorry” which in British English can mean “Listen up you slimy piece of shit”, which you also don’t want to be followed by “sir”, which translates to “you plebeian dung pile”.
If you are somewhere posh where you are unwelcome or unticketed then “I’m sorry sir” isn’t the apology you think it is.
There's this weird backwards quality to your examples. It's like the thieve's slang in -- I forget the time and place -- where every word you use means the opposition of what it usually means. An American I know who lived in England for a couple years told me that "I quite like it" does not mean "I like it a lot" -- it's a way of expressing lack of enthusiasm. Is that true?
e.e. cummings rather anticipated the approach to "affirmative consent" that you describe, in a poem whose dialogue is funny and well characterized and not at all Martian: may i feel said he (https://allpoetry.com/may-i-feel-said-he).
you do not apologize for anyone but yourself. if you caused them to feel sad in a meaningful way, "I'm sorry I raised such a personal subject. I didn't know. Let's not continue on." Or:
"i'm sorry i let my temper get the best of me. please forgive me." Or:
"i'm sorry i did X in the past but this isn't related to what we are talking about now."
But if it is related own it and shut up.
at some point you also need to own the consequences of your belief either way, and sometimes that means offense or feeling bad. you have no obligation to make them
feel better. this is infantilizing them. they are not your kids.
therapy culture is bad because it uses other people's feelings or uses traits/diagnoses to evade their responsibilities or put the burden on other people. if you are "neurodivergent"
YOU have to work harder to deal with things, but a good person understands this as also helps. it does not mean you put up with every little thing they do and its your fault if they annoy you.
Says all that needs to be said here. I have on a couple of occasions in the past 50 years apologised for real - as in, conceded that I have behaved badly and wronged my interlocutor - and much more often, expressed regret that relations between us have got where they have - in effect neither attributing nor accepting blame. This seems a sane and healthy balance to me.
This discussion has given me a sudden flashback to the 1980s, when "sorry" had a phase of popularity as a slang term meaning "pitiful, pathetic, bad."
Of course, this meaning of "sorry" wasn't entirely new—phrases like "a sorry state of affairs" were older—but I think that it had become a semi-obsolete usage, that people generally didn't say except in a few stock phrases. But then somehow young people elevated that usage back to popularity again, saying that something was "sorry" to mean that it sucked. And I remember, the older generation were a bit outraged that we would mess with the language like this.
OK, I think know what’s wrong with ISYFTW. There are 2 things:
First, you are ignoring the accusation aspect of what the person is saying. In these exchanges the person you’re responding to is expressing a negative emotion (generally frustration, hurt or anger), but they are not expressing *only* an emotion. They are also expressing an opinion, a negative evaluation of something you have done . In Scott’s examples, the speakers are complaining about your having refused to give them money for drugs; objected to a genocidal war that the listener’s relative died in; talking about a subject they believe is a trauma trigger for them. To not acknowledge their complaint but only respond to their emotional distress is rude and inconsiderate. It is intrinsically annoying to have one’s complaint ignored, and to ignore the complaint and address the emotion implies that it’s the emotion that’s important. And think about the situations in which a listener ignores the substantive content of what someone says, and addresses only their evident emotion: parents dealing with overtired children . . . nurses dealing with mental patients . . . people who think the person they're listening to is overwrought. To ignore the content of what they’re upset about is in the same family as “you’re cute when you’re angry” (it’s a less awful member of that family, but still am member.)
Second, to say “I’m sorry you’re feeling that way “is very often not particularly honest. When I accidentally step on one of my cats' tails, and it gives a cry of pain and then retreats from me fearfully I am genuinely sorry that I caused the cat pain, and that now it fears me. Occasionally something happens with another person that's similar: I accidentally do something that distresses them a lot, they speak up about what I've done, and I am heartily sorry that I did it & that I caused them pain. In those situations, I am sorry I did the thing they're objecting to, and I apologize. More commonly, though, when someone complains about something I did, saying that it frustrated them, hurt them, or something along those lines, I am not exactly sorry they are feeling the way they do. Most often I am not focused as much on how they are feeling as on their accusation that I did something I should not have, and in many cases I don’t think their complaint is as valid as they think it is. I myself am feeling hurt or annoyance or frustration about the judgment they are making of me.
So, to take the encounters Scott describes: if a family member accused me of not loving them because I would not give them money for drugs I would be hurt and angry. I would be sad about their addiction and about the loss of the person they used to be, I would be sorry they were suffering from withdrawal, but when they came out with “You don’t love me,” I would be hurt and angry, not sorry they felt that way. (I would certainly be sorry to be stuck in the middle of the awful exchange I was having with them, but that’s a whole different kind of sorry.). The person speaking up about their relative dying in the genocidal war would annoy me a little, but not much — mostly I would be thinking that they needed to pull their minds back from their individual case and see the big picture — but I would also feel some sympathy for their having lost a loved on. I don’t think sympathy for someone’s sadness is the same as feeling sorry they feel that way — it’s more resonating to the way they feel. And the person complaining about being triggered would just make me mad, and I would be sorry that they were at my talk, not sorry they felt triggered.
I doubt that the reactions I’m describing are unusual. When I just observe a stranger feeling frustrated or hurt or angry I do often feel sorry they’re having a bad time, and wonder what just happened to them. But when someone I know accuses me of doing something lousy to them, it’s usually a complicated situation that I don’t see the same way they do. I might react pretty well if they brought up the issue in a calm way, but if they are displaying a lot of indignant upset, my emotions are stirred too, and generally distress at the other person’s distress isn’t the dominant one.
My sister was an addict. “I love you, but I don’t want to fund your drugs.” “I don’t want you to be homeless, but I don’t want to fund a drug house.” This last when we bought the run down house she had been renting after her landlady died. Lest you think I’m foolish and overly generous, buying this place was the cheapest of the available options.
"We'll have to agree to disagree" is not much less passive aggressive than SYFTW, and it will still piss people off because people will always be pissed off by you refusing to back down from disagreeing with them, but it is more endorsed by polite society as a polite way of expressing the sentiment and comes with the bonus effect of a strongly implied "and now we will be switching subjects as further discussion is pointless"
Yeah, and it's dictatorial. Agreeing to disagree has to be a mutual decision. If one person just declines to pursue discussion of your complaint, that's not agreeing to disagree, that's ignoring your complaint.
I kind of actually get triggered by the phrase (don't feel sorry) and the original one wasn't even in English. A similar phrase was just an answer to my accusations that the other party actions harmed me.
They were just expecting me to forgive them without quite saying they're going to act the same way in the same situation. This is because forgiving them is my social obligation. They were sorry I'm not smart/mature enough to understand their actions and the way they were for my own good and be able to control my feelings as to be grateful instead.
Seems to me that it's not exactly that they are expecting you to forgive them, but simply failing to acknowledge that you have a complaint about them. They are speaking as though all you have done is report that you're experiencing an unpleasant emotion -- as though you had said you still haven't recovered from your dog's death last week. But what you have really done is object to something the other person did (and also make evident the emotion it's causing). It's rude of them to ignore your complaint. And their responding to your emotion without addessing your complaint implies that the real issue is your emotionality -- you're overwrought or oversensitive.
So you should ask permission for each specific act: “May I put my penis in your vagina?” This 100% solves the problem with no downsides - except that if any man actually did this, the woman would immediately suspect him of being a Martian spy. I’m not happy with the fact that this convenient solution wouldn’t work - just not deluded enough to deny it."
I think this take is just flat-out *wrong*. Of course it sounds weird using clinical language, but no woman ever felt me saying "I really want to be inside you right now, can I go get a condom?" (or something in a similar vein expressing the same sentiment, but doing so verbally instead of non-verbally) was awkward. It did result in a rejection sometimes, but I am very, very happy about those, because I do not know whether the woman would have had sex with me against her will if I hadn't explicitly asked. And when it didn't lead to a rejection, the sex was awesome :-)
I feel like what a reasonably good-but-not-afraid defender wants is a two-step process here. You want something to say that reveals to you, the attacker, and the audience that the attacker is or isn't in bad faith. If they are saying you-are-wrong-because-I'm-angry we basically already know, but it helps to show it to everyone else.
You want that opening to sort of semi-vague, reasonable enough that a good actor will at least consider it, but absolutely fucking infuriating to the very bad people who use the bad tactic looking for an easy-cheater's-win in the first place. You also want to weave in some I'm-very-reasonable language to make yourself the adult.
No need to point out that they are the child - they are doing that themselves. You just need to provide a white backdrop for the inky blackness of their shriveled souls.
And one lucky thing here is that the person who is accosting you isn't likely to be a thinker or a good arguer; if they were, they'd be making an argument instead of committing blackmail. Given that, longer word-counts are our friend. We are all of us here neurodivergent, and neurodivergents want "normal people" phrases to use as magic spells to diffuse situations.
You don't get that luxury here. You can't just escape using a one-sentence form letter. You need to have a short conversation, one with planned readied actions on the other side of the door as the aggressor trys to break it down.
So for starters:
1. I'm not trying to upset people, but I'm right about this, and this isn't something I feel comfortable lying about. It would be irresponsible.
Elegant as hell. You aren't in the businesses of upsetting people - but what are you in the business of? The listener connects the dots and finds you are saying that it's telling the truth. And you can't lie about it, which means a couple things; you think it's the truth, you have to keep telling the truth for moral reasons, and your attacker *doesn't*. They are on the side of evil.
They could respond in several ways:
1. Shrieking. You remain calm, and reiterate that the truth is important. You *don't* say "I'm sorry you are UPSET by the TRUTH" and then smirk. That's Reddit-troll level. You don't even say they are asking you to lie. You just say you *can't* lie about it, because it's important, over and over. In your calmest, softest voice, with sympathy in your eyes but sharpened daggers in your heart, until you have every reasonable person in the room. You weren't going to get the rest of the shriekers anyway.
2. Threatening. See above, except now you are willing to take the consequences if that's what it takes, because *the truth is just that important.*
3. Some kind of half-baked counterargument. This is a win. Again, if they had a good argument, they would have used it. And if you have a good argument, which you should if any of this is relevant, you can crush them with it. Remember, this is *your* Ted talk, even if it's family thanksgiving.
4. Coming to a sudden understanding that you are right that things need to be thought about and discussed, and that seeing who can scream the loudest isn't the way to know what's right. (Note: This has never happened. More on that below.)
You never say so, but you act at all times like you are being heckled; like the adult time that was being had is being interrupted. You are calm, to contrast their screaming. You strongly imply that you are a reasonable person with a strong commitment to truth, which is hopefully true. You never apologize, because you need to defend yourself from the bad person.
You simply say you aren't trying to offend anyone, but that you are right and you can't just ignore that, and repeat it forever if you have to. And this gets anyone that it's possible to get. It really does. It's just that it's never going to be the shrieker, because they are a bad person, and it's not going to be the people in the audience who think the shrieker's tactics are OK, because they are bad people too.
And when we reverse engineer the fact that you are dealing with a ton of bad people who think this tactic is OK and not a horribly dishonest anti-social thing babies do, we suddenly get why the phrase you want to use is at hyperstitious slur cascade level 70 already. If you were dealing with someone you could win over in the first place, it wouldn't be. People would hear what you said - that you don't like that the person is upset, but that you aren't actually wrong.
But you are dealing with bad players, immoral know-nothings who want to destroy the very fabric of society. And for them, you need rules:
1. Be slippy. Use a couple sentences, and mix up your phrasing. Imply they are doing something wrong and immoral (they are) and stay very calm. Any apology is limited to your calm, adult tone.
2. Be persistant. If they are willing to yell forever, you are willing to be calm and insist that you can't just lie to make people feel better, as much as you are feeling-good-positive. And you are willing to do it for hours if you need to, in the same calm tone, never condescending, but always as patient as a good parent who knows they can't allow their child to win when the argument is about running with knives.
3. Be subtle and insidious. You never call them bad. You just heavily imply you are good in a way nobody can miss, and create a contrast that most people won't miss. Don't insult the spectators by connecting the dots for them. Let them do it. Feel proud about it. Feel thankful to you for it.
4. Be ready to pull away. When people start telling the knowledge-arsonist to stop screaming, let them. Fall back to a mediator role. Try to protect the idiot, in calm, reasonable ways that also stab their liver and leave them bleeding out on the pavement.
There's a lot of hyperbole here, but the general thrust is something I believe. Anyone who does this, who goes "I'm upset because I disagree!" deserves a corrective backhand. It's not *better* if they don't know better, it's worse. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Destroy their very souls within them if you have to, but don't let them continue on this path uncorrected and unpunished. Make it cost to be bad in this way.
Maybe we should all go back to speaking Greek, because they have two different words for this. With apologies for not having time to install the keyboard driver so I'm just going to transliterate - Sygnomi means "I'm sorry (and I take responsibility)", as in "I'm sorry for being late, I was engrossed in reading ACX and forgot the time". Lypame means "I'm sorry (I feel sad)" without saying it's your fault, as in "I'm sorry your cat died". Assuming you had nothing to do with the death, of course.
"Unfortunately, they remind me of the mid-2010s debate around “affirmative consent”. The idea was - sometimes women are uncomfortable with sex but too afraid to speak up, so men should directly ask “may I have sex with you?”. Or you could go even further - some women were comfortable with some sex acts but uncomfortable with others, so you should ask permission for each specific act: “May I put my penis in your vagina?”
This 100% solves the problem with no downsides - except that if any man actually did this, the woman would immediately suspect him of being a Martian spy."
I think it's really disingenuous to turn this phrase of asking consent into it's most ridiculous form to get people to agree with you. Of course nobody says "may I put my penis in your vagina", but my model of the world is that people usually do ask permission to do this.
So I guess I want to clarify whether you are trying to say that you actually believe that nobody asks permission for specific sex acts? My model is there is a spectrum, from implicit to explicit, but the real life modal point is something like asking "is this okay?" (Which, imo, is an important thing to ask - perceived enthusiasm for whatever is currently happening surely does not automatically translate into enthusiasm for another thing happening).
Maybe this is irrelevant because maybe the actual point you were trying to make was specifically about a comparison between saying bizarre non-human sounding sentences around sex and consent, and bizarre non-human sentences in this situation? In which case, sure.... As in, sure if you phrase hypothetical things someone might say in an absurd way they will sound absurd. But don't use the hyperbole of this to pretend the middle ground doesn't exist. NVC style communication is a great way to actually own emotions and express accurate statements, I do this often, and it works, and I can say 'I feel really sad about what's happening in this conversation' and it not feel absurd, and I think with some practice any of you could as well.
(If you have a dick and have sex with people with vaginas, please ask if it's okay to do something that has a relatively high probability of being painful ! Although, would be interested to hear anyone's thoughts reading this about what they think here, maybe especially people who are on the receiving end of penetrative sex).
I use "That's too bad" in this spot. Maybe it sounds a little condescending, but so does "I'm sorry you feel that way." There's kind of nothing you can say in this situation that will make the other person feel better, because what they fundamentally want is for you to agree with them and that's not going to happen.
the fundamental issue with ISYFTW is that it's weasely, you're trying to get the benefit of apologizing (them feeling closure by you apologizing) without the downside (admitting you were wrong) and it just obviously comes off that way.
I think a better way to handle a situation like this (someone feels you have wronged them, you disagree) is to decide whether or not you care about their feelings.
if you care about their feelings you can say "I never want to do anything that hurts your feelings. this obviously hurt your feelings so that sucks." This is truthful without forcing you to (dishonestly) admit remorse or imply that you are wrong. you can truthfully acknowledge that while you don't regret the action, the feelings are hurt.
this response tends to confuse the recipient (it's unclear if you are apologizing or not) and tends to lead to one of two actions:;
a. the incorrectly interpret it as contrition, in which case, fine.
b. the recognize that maybe you care about them but you feel like your actions are justified and then they get kind of curious about why and you can have a longer conversation.
The rhetorical sorry is much like the rhetorical "how are you?". The primary meaning of "how are you?" is:
"Although we are not close enough in relations to actually spend time talking about how we each really are, it does matter to me if you are well even though we don't have time to literally answer this question we've asked each other"
You can't make this literal without killing the sense of it being genuine
The beauty of, "I'm sorry you feel that way" is that it's harder to reject than a statement with no rhetorical apology at all since there might be a bit and it's so similar to the standard rhetorical sorry
At the same time it pretty much removes any actual expression of apology when it's being inappropriately demanded as assurance that you really take their side. This is a good way to deal with political correctness and its ongoing versions, or nonpolitical inappropriate personal demands
"We disagree; no offense intended." I admit that I have been accused of... Martian is a nice way to put it.
Yay, fellow Martian!
Maybe we can use the slur cascade dynamic but just turn it into a Martian cascade instead?
Normalize awkward but technically appropriate phrasings!
That would be great.
I am also for this suggestion
> Suppose you are a college speaker, advocating a political point which you believe to be true and important. Someone in the audience says they’re triggered by it and now you’ve traumatized them.
In this example, there is no disagreement - you agree and acknowledge that they were hurt by the words, and you're sorry-as-in-sad about the fact and want to express sympathy and that the act wasn't intended to hurt them... but despite that, the action was morally appropriate - and while the other person *could* disagree about that, as of yet they haven't said that, so it's not a clear that you disagree about something, much less the specifics of the hypothetical disagreement.
I'd assume that if I said something I thought was true and they thought triggering that we disagreed about it, no?
I'm assuming that you both agree that the thing is triggering and you both agree that the thing is true.
You might disagree whether triggering true things should be said in this venue, but at that point in the conversation it's not yet established whether that's the case or not - because it would also seem reasonable for me to say that this topic is painful for me because of some circumstances, and request that perhaps we should change the subject, but *without* asserting that the speaker had some duty to avoid it or verify beforehand and did anything wrong.
Gotcha. I got nothin'.
The example scenario involved being in the audience at a speech; audience members do not normally have social standing to request a change of topic at such a speech, nor is it typically remotely practical to for the speaker to suddenly switch to a speech about an unrelated topic, even if they were inclined to do so.
Announcing that you've been triggered conversationally implies that you want *something* to be done about that. And if your goal was merely that you personally didn't want to hear it, you would presumably have left the room, instead of disrupting the event.
I agree the complaint doesn't necessarily imply moral fault, but it nearly certainly implies you want the speaker to act differently in the future, and is nearly certain to be understood that way by everyone else in the room. If you refuse to respond to that obvious implication, I think you're likely to be perceived as confusing, foolish, and/or rude.
If you feel it is important not to assume someone meant something they didn't technically say (even in situations where you have high confidence), I recommend asking a direct question about it, like "what do you think should be done about that?" or "are you suggesting I shouldn't have said it?" Unfortunately, even that may be seen as rude, but at least it doesn't result in talking past each other.
Ok, this "Martian" discourse is really bugging me. Wargaming casual conversation! Why do rationalists do this? We should be trying to make communication more rational, and above all more honest, rather than methodically working out how to perfectly conform to people's irrational and dishonest preferences. It's creepy, it's calculatingly manipulative, and most ironically it's more "Martian" than anything else you could do.
Effortlessly speaking in a natural-sounding way --> effortlessly speaking in a highly accurate stilted-sounding way --> carefully pre-calculating how to speak in an accurate-sounding way --> carefully pre-calculating how to speak in a natural-sounding way.
I would expect that's the hierarchy of non-weirdness in your discourse, even if you only care about sounding cool (and not, you know, about morality and truth). What's wrong with you all?????
Acknowledging the difficulties of making communication more rational is part of making communication more rational. No one here is aiming at conformity, let alone manipulation, tut. As for your weirdness hierarchy, if by weird you mean uncommon, your rankings are incorrect.
I think there's a big difference between acknowledging that certain phrases don't work as well and treating that as a decisive reason to reject them. I wouldn't even mind if people were *arguing* that you should optimise all communication for perfect naturalness above all else. What I hate is when this is just *assumed* to be the single most important factor.
Not everyone's doing this, but a lot of them are.
Huh. I'd've said the Martian discourse was about making accuracy natural, not compromising accuracy.
You say casual conversation but we are talking about conversations that have escalated to the point where some kind of walk-back seems necessary, but risks escalating the situation.
Okay, fair point, it does depend on how significant the conversation is. Planning out the diplomacy of some major personal conflict is very sensible. Though I'm not sure how high "not sounding like a Martian" is on the importance list in that situation.
I agree, Scott has outed me as a Martian and I think he is making a fair point but as I said in my reply, sounding like a Martian is less bad in the context of an escalating argument than in bed.
The word "effortlessly" is highly inaccurate here. All communication takes effort. Precise communication takes more effort, adds time for each party to think things through, adds extra words and stumbling blocks, and requires diversions to explain terms in a rigorous way.
"Carefully pre-calculating how to speak in a natural-sounding way" is better known as "learning to speak well" and it eventually becomes effortless. Highly accurate speech in low-stakes situations is undesirable and inefficient, for the same reason that always getting to the airport five hours early and never missing a flight is undesirable and inefficient: using precision as a safeguard against misunderstanding costs you much more than a misunderstanding would.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but can you elaborate on what precision costs you? Is it only the extra unnecessary effort? It seems to me that a norm encouraging everyone to be more precise in general would be beneficial for society. Even if one's own extra precision is not helping discourse on its own, it may be helping to promote that norm.
My guiding principle is whenever I have an exchange of words with someone I have entered into a negotiation. Some negotiations are trivial, and others complex but the same principle applies.
“When I use a word it means exactly what I intend it to mean, no more and no less.” says someone in Alice in Wonderland. It’s precise, but begs the question. For practical purposes the only meaning in my words is the one the listener imputes to them, and vice versa.
“Have I made myself understood?” is the cry in the wilderness.
Know what I mean?
Consider "fucking stop moving or you'll die; don't get within a metre of that cable; move back or the spark will kill you" and compare with "you are about 130 centimetres from a fallen 275 kilovolt transmission line, an arc from which could cross a gap of perhaps 50 or 60 centimetres, from memory, but my memory is pretty good to the point I'm 80% sure I'm right, and your distance gives you a safety margin of less than a metre, which I deem insufficient due to the risk of falls or mishaps, so in order to ensure your personal safety, you must increase your distance from said transmission line."
The example might be something of a strawman, given that it's a lot more dire than "we disagree; no offence intended", but:
A) fast transfer of important information can be vital to one's goals, like preserving life,
B) hierarchy of importance in information can be lost in the details, and
C) as long as the key point is precise (urgency: "fucking", action: "stop moving") it doesn't matter whether you call it a cable or a line, nor whether a metre is the precise distance a spark might cross.
This is still important even if you're trying to disagree without upsetting someone, or sleep with your new girlfriend without her putting her pants on and breaking up with you for ruining your first night together. Inefficient communication wastes time, and that means it dilutes the message, sometimes so much that the message doesn't get to the other person.
(As an aside, I reckon the swearing would be effective in my culture, but in others it might also distract from the message.)
That was a good comment, and now I'm somewhat rethinking my position. It does indeed seem that too much accuracy can paradoxically harm accuracy. I'm not sure if it justifies the extent of peoples' obsession with seeming natural and charismatic, but I agree I was downplaying the latter's importance to some extent. Thanks.
I described the argument in the original post to my wife, and she said "If you ever say 'I'm sorry you feel that way to me, we're going to have a big problem."
It seems fine to me, but I think the phrase is just too far gone to be rehabilitated, alas!
Eh, I'm not sure that there ever was a time when most people found it acceptable, even when they weren't yet tripped up by "I'm sorry that your aunt died". "I'm sorry you feel that way" just oozes irritated passive-aggressiveness instead of alleged sympathy, unless you know that you're speaking to a Martian.
Tone can save it. Barely. But boy do you have to be careful, and an alternative phrasing is much safer.
As someone who has worked customer service jobs in the past, I appreciate anyone noticing that certain phrases, while technically correct, simply do not work if a human says them in a conversation. Some of my old bosses certainly did not understand that.
I’m a bit passive aggressive, so I use “I understand your point” or “I get where you’re coming from.” I find it tends to do the job of threading the needle; all but the most socially inept get that it’s empathy without apology.
This is the answer, I think these phrases are a lot less passive-aggressive and more pro-social than ISYFTW. These phrases basically say “I hear you, and I acknowledge your perspective is reasonable, even if I disagree” which is much more satisfying than ISYFTW’s implication that “I can’t see any reasonable point worth hearing in your complaint, it must be entirely a problem with your emotions so I’m washing my hands of it.”
I agree as well. I don't know whether Kurt was saying he thinks this is a passive aggressive thing to say or whether he likes these phrases because they are clearly not passive aggressive and so feel safe to have on hand. I like them and all their variations just fine -- "I get that" or "I hear you" or "I can see that."
They are very low effort demonstrations of care or interest and so depending on context, would need to be followed up with more for people you're not just passing acquainted with.
Yeah, I don't see those phrases as passive-aggressive. They're more defusing if anything. I sometimes get told I'm seen as quite diplomatic in some cases, especially preventing rows, and I use this approach. It's worth noting that we're not talking about literal stock phrases here, more a general attitude. I tend to find myself saying things like "I get where you're coming from, and it's a totally reasonable point, but I'm more concerned about XYZ." Generally prevents escalation, at least.
I probably should’ve said “non-confrontational” rather than “passive-aggressive.” I see your point ( ;) )
Pro tip: never say "but"! It breaks everything which is good in this approach. I propose: "I get where you're coming from, and it's a totally reasonable point, and that's why I'm concerned about XYZ."
Combines well with "agree to disagree?" if you or the other person dont want to argue anymore
I entirely endorse these phrases. And a key point that a lot of people are missing here is that very often the other person wants most of all to be *understood* (which is part of why ISYFTW is so enraging: it's a boilerplate phrase that can be said to anyone without even hearing--much less understanding--what they're saying).
Which also means the very best response is probably "I understand your point..." followed by a
paraphrase of their point in your own words. Then you can go on to explain why you still disagree, with the other person knowing you've *actually* taken in their perspective.
> which is part of why ISYFTW is so enraging: it's a boilerplate phrase that can be said to anyone without even hearing--much less understanding--what they're saying)
So is "I get where you're coming from". You can say whatever you want.
The reason this goes over better is that people respond better to the message "you are right to feel that way" than they do to "you are wrong to feel that way". That's the difference.
Kind of related, for years my mum has been saying she hates when people append "no offense" to the end of sentences which a reasonable person might find offensive. She says that if you don't want to cause offense, you should avoid saying things that a reasonable person might find offensive, not just say them anyway and append "no offense" to the end of it, like that automatically lets you off the hook.
I countered that the phrase "no offense" doesn't mean "I said a potentially offensive thing but I also said 'no offense' so they cancel out and now if you get mad, YOU'RE the asshole". The intent behind "no offense" is to convey the idea that, while the speaker is aware that some might take offense at what they just said, it was not their intention to CAUSE offense or insult by saying it: they're not just going out of their way to hurt people's feelings out of sheer malice. Consider "no offense, but you smell kind of bad - you might want to take a shower before we go out".
Of course according to this meaning the phrase is basically redundant: if you know someone well enough that you believe the potentially-offensive thing they said was said in good faith, the phrase "no offense" adds nothing (and if you distrust them such that you think they DID say it to piss you off, their saying "no offense" afterwards is unlikely to change your mind).
I agree, "no offense" is a relative statement that demonstrates that you are still personally on side with the person despite making an unusually direct criticism, it has a definite and valuable meaning
It's the same problem, though; in the current culture, saying "No offense, but" means "I totally intend to offend you." You have to know the nuances of the language as spoken. If I were trying to tell someone to shower more often, which I have actually had to do, I'd take a much longer way in. "I know sometimes we lose the ability to smell our own body odor, but others can still smell it. I think you're probably not aware that other people are avoiding you because you are not showering often enough." Something along those lines.
Personally I would be upset by the longer setup as it implies I have less agency. "No offense, but" suggests I have made an error I should not be expected to and the speaker is indicating that they are saying something that is ideally unnecessary if I live up to normal standards I can be expected to. They're still on my side, or not making a confrontational comment, but also indicating they expect more in this context. I feel in most cases this threads the needle well
You're both right. The problem is that one of you is talking about No Offense Classic™ and the other is talking about the relatively recent Sour No Offense™. Unfortunately, somebody at the company decided it would be edgy to put both products on the market with no labeling or packaging difference between them.
I think its place is in the “I mean no offense, but your fly is open.” category of discourse. Or in concert with an action you must take that might go against the grain if left unexplained; “ I hope you won’t be offended, but I won’t be able to share this meal with you, because [xyx reasons]. The general case being that you must behave in a way that violates some social expectations, but for a good reason., and you need some social lubricant.
It would be pointless to say “I mean no offence, but you’re an a**hole”; unless you enjoy the added sarcasm…
In my mind "no offense but..." is the cousin of "I probably shouldn't say this but..." and a distant relative of "I'm not racist but..."
To be avoided, even when said in good faith.
Related: "everything before the 'but' is bullshit".
"I like you but..." "I can see that but...." "I'm sorry about that but..."
The way I learned it is that the "but" erases the thing that came before it.
That is possible, but I think it has been over applied in recent years. "I like you, but I really need some quiet time alone now" doesn't negate what comes before the but, except in the mind of the overly sensitive or anxious. One might say prefacing something as "I am worried this will upset you, but as your friend I really feel like I need to talk to you about this" is equally bad, but is just the overly long form of the same sort of thing: people who read too much into it, who look for reasons to take offense or believe the worst, they are going to find it.
I say in recent years because it seems to me that there is an increase in the importance of performative behaviors in social interaction, which has led to an increase of discounting observed behaviors as being merely performative instead of sincere. Basically "You are only saying that because HR is making you, and you are really a bastard" applied to all interactions.
Agreed about performative behaviors, etc.
I like your examples of "but" as well, though I think "I need some time alone now, let's meet up later" is maybe better. And the other one is good enough starting with "As your friend, I really need to...." BUT also, who cares right? These are all plenty good and getting too fussy about parsing words is exhausting and unnecessary and underscores your other point.
My main point was just that "but" is best used sparingly and that it often undermines the thing that came before it. Not always though as you've pointed out!
I support more experimentation and courage in speaking up rather than less, and it's so much harder to learn and practice if everyone feels under a microscope which there's an awful lot of these days, plus additional bad faith.
This is such a low IQ meme. You see this constantly on the internet and in stand-up comedy routines. "You know how when people start a sentence with 'I'm not racist, but...', isn't it funny how you know the next thing they say is gonna be racist!!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!!! That's so contradictory!!! This is such a funny and unique insight!!!"
Like... do you know what the word "but" means?
> used to introduce a phrase or clause contrasting with what has already been mentioned.
No shit the thing that comes after "I'm not racist, but..." is going to sound racist. That's why the person prefaced what they were going to say with the "but" - because they knew it was going to sound like it contradicted the thing that came before. That's the reason they used that phrase. That's just the meaning of the word - that the thing coming next will sound contradictory to the thing that came before. You're not making a revelatory or interesting or humorous insight by noting that when people use the word "but" they tend to make two apparently contrasting statements.
Well, the point of the joke is that some people genuinely think that prefacing their spicy take with "I'm not racist" lets them off the hook, when it obviously doesn't work that way, so everybody can safely mock their clueless bigotry.
I am not racist, but I believe that black people were rare in medieval Poland.
Here, the introduction basically means: "I know you probably have been indoctrinated to believe that only a racist person would find something weird about a movie allegedly situated in medieval Poland where maybe 30% of actors are black. However, that is not true, or at least not about me. I needed to say this explicitly to at least make you consider the hypothesis that I might be making a factual historical statement rather than simply expressing hostility against black people."
Have you used the phrase in that way, in practice?
It just seems like an unusual way to use it. Why bring racism into it at all before anyone has accused you of it? To me, it sounds like you think believing black people were rare in medieval Poland is something that would make someone racist. But maybe that's because I assume that black people were rare in medieval Poland (not that I've looked into it).
But it's a bit like when I hear people declare themselves anti-racist. It seems like strange thing to say unless someone has specifically asked you for your position on it. Saying "I'm not racist" doesn't stop you being racist any more than declaring "I'm anti-racist" does. So I'm immediately trying to work out what the coded message they're trying to send is.
I suppose an analogy to your example might be "I'm not anti-Semitic, but I think Israeli settlements should be removed from the West Bank" or "I'm not Islamophobic, but I don't think Hamas should be targeting Israeli civilians". I'd definitely agree that someone could hold either position without being anti-Semitic or Islamophobic, but I'd be wondering what the point of adding the earlier declaration is, unless you think the listener is going to use an accusation of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia against you, and at that point it feels like you're assuming bad faith on their part. At that point, I don't see what it's adding.
Excellently put.
Okay, not sure how on earth I provoked that rant. The point is that people will say something they don't really mean to soften up the other person for the actual disagreement/criticism/whatever. Nothing more. I wasn't intending to write a thesis on the word "but".
Pretty much.
There's always "You're not going to like this, but..."
At least it's honest.
Totally, saying no offence is a clear indicator that the speaker knows they are being offensive and is preparing you for it. Never use it.
https://comb.io/TtDjk9
"We disagree; no offense intended."
Compare the ill-informed "disclaimer" one often encounters these days in social media and on youtube: "All rights belong to the original creators. No copyright infringement intended."
Drawing attention to the thing you did and pointing out that you did in fact suspect it might have the effect it had but chose to do it anyway makes things worse, not better.
Yes, if you start saying that unprompted. But ISYFTW is a response to someone saying you’ve offended them, so “no offense intended” is fine.
Maybe a good alternative would be "you have a right to feel that way, and I'm sympathetic". That sounds fairly natural, if maybe slightly too aloof for some situations.
Ding ding ding, Martian alert. If someone said that to me I would suspect that they had been replaced by a HR-trained Chat GPT model.
It occurs to me that in my hostile reaction to the first post, I wasn't taking into account all possible contexts.
1) Interpersonal - this is what I was responding to when I said I strongly disagreed. In my defense many of the examples were about interpersonal disagreement, like refusing to buy a relative drugs. In those cases, I don't think "bespoke phrasing in the heat of the moment" is an unreasonable goal.
We often have to express ourselves under pressure, and the stock phrase comes off as at least equally martian as the suggested alternatives. The stock phrase is also...bad for its purpose. Both culturally - people seem to agree that it's not a good response - and literally. It definitionally means either "I'm sad you feel that way" which suggests you don't find their feelings valid, or "I'm taking responsibility for you feeling that way" which, as you point out, you should not do.
I agree that people probably will not deal with a relative seeking drugs in a perfect way that allows them to continue the relationship unaltered. "Sorry you feel that way" does not change that dynamic at all. Probably nothing you say will, but you can at least try.
2) You are being burned at the stake by a social media mob: This is the case I didn't consider. And I want to be very clear here that I understand the impulse to respond by acknowledging feelings and expressing a hope for reconciliation with the mob that is currently lighting the pyre. But I want to be equally clear that you SHOULD NOT DO THAT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!
Treat this situation as though you are in court and a prosecutor is questioning you. Do not equivocate. Do not hope for reconciliation. You can nuance your position but only in a way that you truly believe. Anything that looks even kind of like an admission of guilt, or even an acknowledgement of the humanity of your accuser, will be used as further proof that you deserve the flames. Once you have been burned, your conduct during this ordeal will be used to determine how future people interact with you. An acceptance of guilt, or even an expression of sympathy will simply seal the truth that you did something wrong and deserved what happened to you.
Now if you actually did something burning-worthy, certainly apologize and make it clear how you will change your behavior in the future. But otherwise, either shut up or defend yourself.
> Once you have been burned, your conduct during this ordeal will be used to determine how future people interact with you. An acceptance of guilt, or even an expression of sympathy will simply seal the truth that you did something wrong and deserved what happened to you.
But it's a fine line, impossibly fine, because even one bit of over-reaction will be used as evidence too. It's like the nightmare criteria that I've heard police can use in interrogations: they're guilty if they're too calm, or too emotional, or too quiet, or too talkative, or too passive, or too aggressive...
This is why almost all lawyers discourage their clients from testifying on their own behalf in criminal trials. The natural human reaction to being accused is to take partial responsibility for the few things you might not have handled perfectly and then offer an explanation for why you behaved the way you did. In interpersonal situations this is the best way to maintain a good relationship and receive grace or understanding.
In a situation where you're being accused by a party with a vested interest in establishing your guilt, even in front of a neutral audience, this normal reaction is just self-immolation. Any statement you give will *only* be used to hurt you. If you take responsibility then you're admitting guilt. And your explanation probably makes more emotional sense to you than it does to a third party.
There's a distinction in that most of the people I was advising were *guilty* and what they thought was exculpatory was actually just a pure admission of guilt. These were people with low intelligence and low emotional intelligence, who did not understand that just because they had a reason for doing something illegal it would not become legal.
With that said, even innocent people generally make things worse by speaking in their own defense, because the people they're talking to have a vested interest in proving their guilt. In almost all cases it's best to say nothing, even though it's unbelievably hard to do so.
Again, why do you need to express sympathy in the first place? The phrase already implies that you're looking down on them. That they're the ones being emotional and irrational. If you don't want to apologize, don't apologize. Either lie, change the subject, or if you don't care about your relationship with them, tell them to fuck off. All three options are better than this stupid, passive-aggressive line.
EDIT: Actually, I thought of one justifiable use of this line, and that's if you're a mafioso and you say it right before you kill someone. But I'm going to assume you're not using it for that.
The viewpoint expressed in this comment is extremely alien to me. Sympathy does not imply looking down on someone. It's a normal, beneficial reaction to someone going through something difficult. Being emotional is not a bad thing. And even if you don't care about your relationship with someone, it's preferable to not be mean anyway.
To literally answer that question, I would feel the need (and quite a strong one) to express sympathy because (and if! that doesn't necessarily apply to everyone) I care a lot about that particular person and their feelings, even if I believe that I did everything right and should not apologize.
Like, that statement isn't probably something I'd want to use towards a stranger in an online discussion, but I can certainly imagine scenarios where that feels the most appropriate thing to say to my mom or my kids.
Refusing to express any sympathy at all gives the impression that you *intended* to cause offense, or at least are extremely callous. ISYFTW is an attempt to say “I’m not totally heartless, I just disagree with you about whether I’ve done anything objectively offensive”.
>"objectively offensive"
No such thing.
To use Scott’s formulation, something that’s more than 70% down the hyperstitious slur cascade.
Okay nothing is truly 100% *objectively* offensive, but good luck with that argument if you call someone a fuckwad.
I'm sympathetic to this view, speaking of sympathy.
I say: apologize already, it's no big deal to do that. People are so afraid that apologizing is accepting blame or responsibility or implies a commitment to change something. It's not and it doesn't. If you don't want to apologize, then don't pretend to. Expressing sympathy because someone got upset at something we said is patronizing.
What people mostly want is to be heard. So if someone is upset at something we've said, the most generous thing we can do is try to understand where they're coming from and then to find something in their experience to validate. And again, we can validate without committing to changing anything about us. If someone wants us to change our behavior, they can ask for that.
Validating what a person is saying is hard to do but incredibly valuable thing to learn how to do. The place to start is just to say back what you heard them say "It offended you when I said chipmunks are less important than weasels." And then they say, "Yes, I had a long close relationship with a chipmunk. I miss him every day." And then you say, "I can see how having had such a cherished chipmunk in your life that it sounded just now like I was minimizing how crucial chipmunks can be."
Anyway, the thing about showing someone you actually heard them is that there's no quick phrase to carry around because it's more a skill set.
The mafioso use of ISYFTW is excellent.
> The phrase already implies that you're looking down on them.
I'd say that's "condescension", rather than "sympathy"? Sometimes they can be expressed with the same words, so it can come down to attitude and tone and facial expression, but I think they're two distinct feelings.
I think the point here is that this phrase cannot convey sympathy without condescension, so if your intention is to do that you should choose another one.
I'm not sure that's what the original commenter was saying, but either way I don't think it's accurate.
I think it's more about the meaning of the phrase rather than the particular words you use to convey it. Introduce "I'm blarg you glarg that way" and in 5 years we'll have posts saying that "blarging" isn't a real apology and everyone who uses it should feel bad.
Most people don't _want_ to hear "I've considered your point thoughtfully, but I still think you're incorrect". Obviously, they think they are not incorrect, and any sort of quick apology phrase won't change their point of view, so this will always upset them. The real way to get through would be to convince them you've seen their point of view - something not really possible in a sentence.
I think that is an important point: people who are complaining about how you made them feel want you to validate them and their feeling, and will be unhappy if you do not. There are probably benign reasons for that, but most commonly it is a power move to make the original actor lower themselves before the offended party. If the original actor doesn't agree that they have done wrong there probably isn't anything they can say to that effect to please the other person, because it isn't the feelings that are the point, but rather that the offended party wants it clear that their feelings trump the behaviors of the actor, i.e. that they are more important.
I am fairly certain about that, incidentally, because in my experience when people have a substantive reason to disapprove of someone else's actions they speak it and don't just claim to be offended. No one says "I find that very offensive!" when someone tries to steal their car, they focus on the fact that it is -their- car. Even kids respond "I was here first!" when someone tries to cut in line, not "it made me sad you did that!"
Seems like you don't think it's possible "validate them and their feeling" without also agreeing to shoulder the guilt for their feeling. With that attitude, how then do you deal with demands for validation? (assuming they're someone you care deeply about, you don't agree you're at fault, and they've (presumably) got reasons other than power tripping, etc.)
I think there needs to be a bit of clarity around what one means by "validate them and their feeling". If validate means "acknowledge you exist, and your feeling does too" you can do that. If validate means "acknowledge that your feeling is justified and a correct reaction; tell that person they are right" then no, I don't think you can if you believe you did not do something wrong. Part of being a rational adult is recognizing that your emotional responses are not always correct and correcting them. If the answer to "What would you have me do differently?" is actually feasible given prior state knowledge and situations, then yes, it is reasonable to express regret/guilt for causing their feeling. If it isn't, then their blaming your actions for their feelings is unreasonable. That doesn't mean it isn't worth coming up with ways to avoid the situation in the future, but it does mean that their blaming of you is wrong. (In fact by their logic you would be justified in saying "Well, I am offended that you are offended!", and in fact would be more so.)
Put another way, if someone you care deeply about is blaming you for upsetting them over something for which you think you are not at fault, you should examine (together) what could have been done differently to identify where the error lies. If there was nothing you could do differently given the situation, the correct behavior of the other person is to not blame you; their feelings against you are invalid/incorrect, and they should correct them. If you can do something differently then you should.
Does that answer your question? I am not sure I am putting my finger right on it; the phrase "demands for validation" strikes me as doing a lot of work and I am not sure I 100% grasp what is being meant.
I also have to say I've been befuddled by seeing "I'm sorry that your relative died" style expressions in English (or, even more weirdly, translated to Finnish - I don't think people used "Olen pahoillani" this way before English-languge influence!), and my natural reaction would probably be "It's not your fault. Then again, I'm not an English-native speaker, and it's probably many other non-English native speakers who are tripped by subtle nuances like this.
We've been using it that way for so long that everybody knows what it means, even if some of us think it's funny to pretend not to. However, if you said to a grieving speaker of English "I apologize for the death of your aunt," it would likely trip them up unless you said it with a thick accent.
I'm not a native speaker, either - but I at least have never seen or heard "I'm sorry your aunt has died". Many similar phrases, yes, like "I was sorry to hear about your loss", or "How's your aunt?" - "She died recently." - "Oh, I'm so sorry!", but if I heard "I'm sorry your aunt has died", I'd expect a "but" to follow, like "but you still have to deliver your work on time".
What do you say in Finnish to someone whose relative has died?
"Osanottoni" or "Otan osaa". Literally "I partake" but really translates to "Condolences".
If it helps, I am a native English speaker who always got confused when people apologized for things that were very obviously not their fault and have nothing to do with them, but this is perhaps the Martian tendency in me. In "I'm sorry your relative died" situations I'd context clue into deciding they aren't literately taking responsibility, but sometimes with very anxious or guilt-prone people it's a hard to tell on the edge cases.
The problem is not confusion over whether or not sorry implies an apology, the issue is the implied meaning of the phrase. If you use the alternative expression I'm sad you feel that way, it is still disrespectful in a way that saying I'm sad your cat died is not. Imagine instead you said I'm sad your cat survived the person would probably be offended because they don't think you should be sad about it.
Should they be happy that you got triggered, instead of sad? If an uninvolved bystander said they were sorry you got triggered, would you think that was offensive? It really seems to me like being sad about that is clearly friendly and sympathetic, not offensive.
I think the implied meaning that people are upset about is "...but I'm not changing my position."
I think we mostly agree, my point is acting like they aren't going to be upset is being obtuse, sometimes it's better to not express anything.
I think there's an important difference between "I'm upset because you violated the agreed-upon standards of politeness and courtesy" and "I'm upset because you didn't take my side", and that many people objecting to this phrase are mostly doing the second thing, but are pretending they're doing the first thing because the first thing is more sympathetic.
And I think that particular pretense is bad and they should stop doing it.
Respectfully I disagree with most of this comment
Hi Scott, thanks for including my comment. I take your point 100% on the Martian thing, I don't have a great comeback except (a) my basic point is I don't like people commenting on my emotions while they are happening, so as long as someone is owning that it's them that's uncomfortable with the escalating situation, I'm not that precious about the words exactly, I'd like to think a less Martian formula would emerge if people are experimenting. Also (b) any alternative to ISYFTW is going to feel a bit clumsy at first, like how new build houses just look wrong at first until the weather has battered them a bit. P.S My dislike of this expression has very little to do with online discourse. Thanks again.
[Edit: the trouble with sexual consent talk is that a clumsy turn of phrase can kill the mood stone dead. Whereas in an argument there's less to lose and more to gain from more precise speech]
"'Condolences' makes you sound like a psychopath."
I've been saying, "My sincerest condolences," and similar for years, and nobody has ever called me a psychopath, or ever taken it other than in the spirit in which it was intended. Maybe this is just the people I interact with.
I feel like being the kind of person who says "my sincerest condolences" is actually what lets you off the hook. Insert a stereotype here of a person who would never be expected to say that, and suddenly it seems out of place and politician-y. (I'm not making a claim that this is about stereotypes, it's more that I think the reaction Scott had is the imagination of some generic person saying it makes it seem weird and out of place)
I, on the other hand, often use “my condolences” in a tongue-in-cheek way (e.g. “I’ve been assigned to the project for Client X.” “Ugh, my condolences.”) — which makes it not a good option for me to use seriously.
Rule 1 when talking to psychopaths is to not accuse them of being psychopaths!
Same here. Like yourself, I never received any pushback for it, and the people I said it to at least seemed to take it in the spirit it was given.
I guess "condolences" has a somewhat detached vibe to me? I feel like saying something a bit stronger in the event that I personally knew the deceased well. But it feels a bit fake to me to say something stronger if I never knew the deceased.
Like, if a friend's uncle or aunt passed on, and I never met that aunt/uncle, it would feel weird to me to get very emotional here. For that, "my sincerest condolences" sounds most appropriate.
My immediate thought on reading the original was that this was a gulf between cultures.
I think I'm a lot older than OGH. I'm also not American. We do things differently, or at least us old folks. Perhaps it's now the done thing in America to fall weeping onto the other guy's shoulder saying "I'm so sorry!"
Other people are somewhat more reserved. "My condolences", particularly if the other party is a relative stranger is about as demonstrative as I think you're supposed to be in public.
"Relative stranger" is roughly "Known them for less than half of the shorter of your respective lives".
Tone of voice and body language will make a difference though. Saying it like a Martian will not go over well.
I agree. If said sincerely and somberly, it totally works. I think it's the kind of thing that the person saying it knows whether they can pull it off or not. I know I can't pull it off and wouldn't try. But I'd welcome someone saying it to me.
> Perhaps it's now the done thing in America to fall weeping onto the other guy's shoulder saying "I'm so sorry!"
Where did you get that from?
In America you'd say "I'm so sorry" or "I'm so sorry to hear that", with the same delivery as you'd say "My condolences". How did you jump from that to weeping?
It was a reaction to the sentence "'Condolences' makes you sound like a psychopath."
If you think that, you obviously think that more is needed. This was a (intended in humor and probably not successful) exaggeration the other way.
The reason it makes you sound like a psychopath is because it's stilted and Martian-like, not because it doesn't express enough agony. It's like greeting someone with "Salutations!".
Likewise, that was a weird snark. Hell my sister's husband's dad just died last week and I literally said "Hey man, I just heard the news. You have my deepest condolences" and it didn't feel weird nor was it received badly. I've always expressed condolences as it feels legitimate as I'm neither sorry nor sorrowful on some person i couldn't care less about dying.
Perfectly fine, and expected, at a funeral. Use sparingly elsewhere.
Yeah same, I've seen it used quite a bit among coworkers, most of whom are of Scott's age or younger, and some are native speakers (psychopath status uncertain though).
> Suppose you are a college speaker, advocating a political point which you believe to be true and important. Someone in the audience says they’re triggered by it and now you’ve traumatized them. You want to express sympathy. But you’re not going to stop going to colleges and speaking about this topic. Maybe you won’t even change the exact text of your speech.
Well, maybe you in fact *should* try to find a way to express the same point without re-traumatizing people? After all you'd prefer not to cause harm to your listeners, right? Appologize for the form of your argument and try to phrase it better next time, without considing the substance of it.
...Why? You're not responsible for other people's emotional weakness.
This is precisely why expressing sympathy for people who say they're triggered or traumatized or whatever is a trap.
Yes, the trap of being a better person than you could've been counterfactually.
I suppose, if such perspective feels horrible for you instead of inspiring, than not expressing any sympathy and being an honest asshole would be best for everyone involved. We would have less of a slur cascade this way.
Capitulating to evil doesn't make you a "better person."
What was the line about "making compromise with sin"?
No disagreement here.
I think the trap in question is that there is no end to what people won't claim is traumatizing or offensive. If you argue that the moon is a giant hunk of rock in space and not a glowing space being who spies on you while you get undressed at night, and someone decides that is offensive and triggering, what can you do? What can you do if the reason they are claiming such is simply that they don't like that you are saying the moon is rock?
There is nothing wrong with trying not to be needlessly offensive, but claiming offense/triggering/trauma is entirely at the will of the claimant and is untestable. As such it leads to infinite demands to reformulate the argument, effectively meaning it can never be made in any form.
The triggered have more crocodile tears than you have time to rewrite and redeliver your argument.
What kind of trap do you mean? What will happen to you if you fall for this trap?
You will only be allowed to say what they think you should be allowed to say.
As someone who both tries very hard to avoid hurting others and also thinks it's important to stand on principal and not say untruths, I agree with this in theory.
In practice, sometimes an idea itself is both objectively true and subjectively hurtful. Some people are honestly, actually triggered in unreasonable circumstances. They're part of an insular culture, or they've gotten good results from victimhood and have subconsciously trained themselves to be fragile or whatever.
And it can be a subtle trap for conscientious people where "try to state an idea without changing the substance" ends up diluting or removing the substance. I'm not saying that you never consider changing your expression of a true idea. But often, very often, banning an idea by banning every potential expression of an idea is an actual strategy that someone is pursuing. That's why this post will get a lot of comments defending being a dick and offending people. It's a backlash to that trap.
I agree with this, and I think that the word “harm” is doing a lot of work in the parent comment. If someone expresses a political opinion that I find odious, then that causes me some disutility, but does it *harm* me?
And if we treat the expression of those opinions as a form of wrongdoing (as though it were a gratuitous insult), does that change to the culture cause a greater disutility?
> That's why this post will get a lot of comments defending being a dick and offending people. It's a backlash to that trap.
I think historically people were dicks first and then they found a clever rationale to it, instead of everyone being perfectly accomodating to each other in the first place. Sure enough, nowdays there are people who are somewhat traumatized by the politcorrectness. I'm ready to practice what I preach and try to use a less triggering phrasing while discussing this matter (in case this is the problem), if they are also ready to cooperate and do the same in other matters. The problem, of course, is that they usually do not treat this kind of accomodation as "cooperation".
> And it can be a subtle trap for conscientious people where "try to state an idea without changing the substance" ends up diluting or removing the substance. I'm not saying that you never consider changing your expression of a true idea. But often, very often, banning an idea by banning every potential expression of an idea is an actual strategy that someone is pursuing.
As someone who also deeply care about standing on principle and not saying untruths, I agree that this is a valid concern, at least in theory. One should be mindful about such possibilities and put actual effort into both not conceding the object level point without epistemic reasons for, and making it in a way that accomodates people that can be hurt by it.
When executed correctly this is the optimal strategy even when dealing with "people who have subconsciously trained themselves to be more fragile due to getting good results from victimhood" - you show them that it's possible to decouple the emotional hurt from intellectual truth, that they can not win the argument by being hurt, even though they are not dealing with some kind of monster who doesn't care about their suffering.
In practice, however, most of the time, people are not even trying to achieve both unoffensiveness and truthfulness. As you might notice from the other commenters, the idea itself appears to produce confusion and animosity. Some even go in their rationalizations as far as to twist themselves into thinking that traumatized folk are "evil" and then pat themselves for not "not capitulating to it".
This reminds me of the old problem of allocating tasks between three workers, one of which is a newbie who wants to do the easiest tasks and another one is a pro who would like to do different kind of tasks in order to prevent boredom, meanwhile if we want to optimize short term productivity, the pro should be doing only the hardest tasks. How people are eager to split into camps, arguing about the imporatnce of performance and job satisfaction, instead of thinking for a couple of minutes and noticing the optimal solution.
If your sincerely held political belief is that group X should be rounded up and sterilised/murdered, then you're the problem. If you're making an argument about the local sales taxes being too low/high, then you've done nothing wrong.
There are multiple levels in between - but ultimately most normal speech shouldn't be considered harmful to people who have turned up to listen to you.
I'm guessing 99% of Americans feel that way about sex offenders, i.e. their teenage kids.
> sex offenders, i.e. their teenage kids.
Perhaps you meant "wrt" instead?
No, I mean their teenage kids. The overwhelming vast majority of teenagers are unconvicted sex offenders, just like their parents. There is a giant cognitive dissonance disconnect in America between the law as written and enforced and people's everyday lives being criminalized.
If you have a teenager and you don't think they haven't committed the sex offense of creating or disturbing child pornography, statutory rape, solicitation of a minor, exposing oneself to a minor, exposing a minor to pornography, etc then you have no idea what your kids are doing or your kids are so sheltered they effectively aren't a normal teenager.
I mean their isn't a week that doesn't go but when my own minor teenagers don't tell me of a friend sending a nude (even if just a retransmission to mock) or a guy offering to expend resources to get sex (i.e. dating) or them demanding resources to maybe have sex (i.e. dating).
Under American law everyone is a sex offender basically, they just get selectively prosecuted. Like drugs, men, and homosexuals (past). But I'd bet if you put it to a poll people would overwhelming vote to execute sex offender and I'd relish their tears when their teenagers were all shot the following day.
Ah, I see. The classic "Three Felonies a Day" thing. Yes, I agree completely.
> Under American law everyone is a sex offender basically, they just get selectively prosecuted.
I’m stepping away from the keyboard for the night, and so should you.
Not at all. Prostitution is legally defined as expending resources for sex and in all 50 states that is a sex offense if one party is a minor. When you were under 18, did you never spend resources (gas, flowers, make up, dinner, prom tickets, a pair of nice pants, buy a girl a drink, TIME, etc) to get sex?
I went to prison for five years for literally paying for the Uber of a girl above the age of consent under that exact logic "you spent resources for sex because money is fungable hence by you paying for her Uber instead of her paying you commercially exploited a minor. You also offered your time and time is money (where they quoted my overtime rate at work)" so yeah, fk you, maybe you should get some real life experience with the legal system and see how corrupt it is.
I feel like you're over-inflating the problems with speaking like a Martian. While some people might initially find it off-putting, those who spend time with you will quickly adapt I find.
It of course makes more sense to talk like a "normal person" while you're around people you only expect to have one or two encounters with, but you also don't need to worry nearly as much about whether you correctly convey an apology to such people.
> I feel like you're over-inflating the problems with speaking like a Martian. While some people might initially find it off-putting, those who spend time with you will quickly adapt I find.
Well, yes. If you have a relationship with another person, then they will know how you talk. And what you say will be counted according to the message you send.
The problem people have with "I'm sorry you feel that way" is that it sends a very offensive message, to wit:
1. I understand that you object to something I've said.
2. You are wrong to do so.
3. There will be no discussion.
No amount of phrasing is going to cover up the fact that this is what you're saying. The message won't become palatable if you happen to invent just the right words, but that appears to be what Scott has in mind for the use of the phrase.
"I'm disheartened to hear that."
"We find ourselves in a disheartening situation."
The universe appears to be less than maximally hedonic for you, and that causes it to be less than maximally for me too.
My father died.
"Yeah. That sucks."
Give me free drugs.
"Yeah, that sucks."
Excellent! Sounds like something Uriel would say.
Is "I didn't mean to upset you", or "I meant no offense" the phrase you're looking for? It doesn't take ownership for any misdeed, it clarifies your non-hostile intent without walking back any of your actual points and, while I'm no great word-smith, to me it sounds like words actual humans say in real life.
But it still admits (inadvertent) fault.
Scott is looking for a pithy way to say “I feel bad that you feel bad, but I frankly don’t agree that what I did was in any way bad and I’d do it again”
Where does it admit fault? It's acknowledging that you've heard their complaint, and that the way they heard it was not the way you intended it. It's not admitting that the complaint is warranted.
It’s admitting that you said something that a reasonable person could find offensive, and were careless in not making your intent clear.
Acknowledging someone's feelings and making it clear you hadn't intended any harm is an admission of fault? I disagree. If they take it that way, well, I can't control how someone else perceives my words. But the words do not imply fault. You have to look for it there to find it. And if you were looking for it, chances are, you're going to find it no matter how I chose to respond.
But I suppose the fact that there are such disagreements is part of why it's so difficult to communicate and engage with one another in a culture where everyone is looking to take offense and few seem to develop the faculties to cope with their own emotional reactions. 95% of the time people aren't trying to be mean or hurt each other. If you get hurt by something someone says that isn't *obviously* mean (like, deliberately denigrating), assume they made a mistake and hadn't intended hurt. Or, if your community is rife with this kind of communication that *is* meant as a dig, then it's time to find greener pastures.
“I meant no offense” doesn’t just acknowledge their feelings, it validates them. It’s implying “ah yes, I can see why you thought that was offensive and that I was trying to offend you, but I assure you I didn’t mean it that way”. Which might be the appropriate response sometimes! But not if they are being unreasonable (or deliberately acting offended in bad faith). It’s probably not a good way to answer an accusation of wrongdoing.
Unfortunately “fault”, like “sorry” is a somewhat overloaded word, but I’m trying to make a distinction between “at fault” and “blameworthy”. The former means merely that your actions caused a negative situation, while the latter means that you knowingly did something clearly wrong. “I meant no offense” is saying “I am at fault, but I am not blameworthy”.
Consider the following three examples that I think are more clearly phrased:
1) I’m sorry you are hurt
2) I’m sorry I hurt you, it was not my intent
3) I’m sorry I hurt you, I was wrong and I won’t do it again
1 admits neither fault nor blame. 2 admits fault but not blame. 3 admits both fault and blame.
To the rest of your post, I sympathize, but would argue that at the point you’re even considering saying “I’m sorry you feel that way”, you are not in a situation where you can trust the other person to interpret what you say charitably. They are already blaming you, acknowledging that you did wrong will make them demand recompense.
I can say "I'm sorry you are hurt; that was not my intent."
I believe I understand what you're saying about "I meant no offense" being an admission of some; the distinction between at fault and blameworthy isn't as stark, I think, as you suggest. What you call "at fault" I see little practical differentiation from blameworthy.
Unless what you really mean by "at fault" is "causal" or "contributing causal." My words may have literally been the trigger of my interlocutor's feelings, so they are the proximate cause. That doesn't make them the ultimate or even most important cause; merely the thing that provided the final trigger. I'm not insecure about the idea that my words caused their feelings in that manner, and generally wouldn't worry about that possibility unless I were talking to someone who is in some sense hostile or predisposed to taking offense to my words. And if that's the case, I'm not really sure it matters what my response is, how finely I split the hair on my lack of culpability versus my sympathy.
The more I think this through, the more I'm convinced that the only reason this question (what words do I use to mean "I feel bad you're upset" while deliberately not validating or accepting that upsetness in any way) is characteristic of a broken relationship or broken community. In a functioning, healthy relationship / community, no one gives a fuck if you use the phrase "I'm sorry you feel that way," because they will infer your meaning, and few bother to even use the phrase, because their base assumption is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. That is to say, I agree with you: if you are in a position where you're thinking about trying to be sympathetic without giving the possible impression that you're giving any ground, you're already in the shit. And if you are, there are no magic words that will get you out of the shit. You can only work through or walk away. If you'd like those words to be your opening to a discussion about it, then use words that will help you do that.
I hear what you're saying, but that's not what I get out of the phrase at all. It's admitting that you said something that a person did find offensive. And a person did find it offensive, or else you wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. It makes no claims one way or the other about whether or not they were reasonable to do so.
In this hypothetical, you made some statement. At least one listener was upset by it. Then you clarified that your intentions weren't malicious. Nowhere in that exchange do I see you saying that the listener's objections are valid.
Not to confuse the issue more, but take a different scenario where I say something, and a listener mishears what I say. Maybe I say "obstacle" but they hear "popsicle." I'm not validating their perception if I clarify that I actually said "obstacle." I'm not even implying that I stuttered or mumbled or was in some way hard to hear. I'm just correcting them on what I actually said.
I see "I didn't mean to upset you" as more similar to clarifying what I said than admitting any guilt. I don't even see the admission that it was reasonable to be upset, only the acknowledgement that someone was upset, reasonably or otherwise.
I just don't think we need to defend ourselves that hard. We don't need to be beyond reproach all the time. It's so easy to say "I'm sorry I upset you."
If we're worried that "I'm sorry" implies some specific commitment to change our behavior, I think that's something like anxiety about an imagined future. If someone wants us to change our behavior, let them ask. "Sorry isn't good enough! I want you to take it back and promise never to say anything like that ever again!" Okay, then that's a different conversation.
"I'm sorry I upset you" is not "You are right in your perceptions about this." Again, if we're anxious that someone will read it that way, then I think that's maybe a lack of confidence in handling what might happen later but very well may not. It's anticipating too much trouble and moving more defensively in conversation than is necessary.
If we say "I'm sorry" and the other person says, "You see I was right, no one should ever say a thing like that," then that's yet another conversation. We can say, "That's not how I see it. I'm okay with what I said. I saw that it upset you and I'm sorry it did. I still stand by it, and here's why..."
I’m fine with “I’m sorry I upset you”. “I *didn’t mean* to upset you” says “I did wrong, but it was accidental”. The first denies both fault and blame (although not as clearly as ISYFTW). The second admits fault, but tries to mitigate the blame.
Here are some ideas:
- "Boo hoo."
- "Sucks to be you."
- "Tough luck."
However, a reasonable concern you might have here is that some of these might not be interpreted as genuine sympathy.
> Scott is looking for a pithy way to say “I feel bad that you feel bad, but I frankly don’t agree that what I did was in any way bad and I’d do it again”
I don't think that's right. If that's the goal, there's nothing wrong with using the phrase in the full knowledge that what people are likely to hear is "go fuck yourself". That's pithy.
He seems to be saying that it's important to him that there be some way to sincerely convey actual regret at the psychic pain experienced by people who are outraged, while simultaneously delivering the message that their outrage is ridiculous and merits no response other than ignoring it. I don't think that goal is achievable.
We are saying the same thing - everything you say in your last paragraph, I agree with and was trying to convey.
I hang around very literal people, so sometimes I get the "Why? It's not your fault" pushback. My response is usually "Sympathy sorry, not culpability sorry." Depending on context, I might add "asshole." If that makes me a Martian, well, I guess I'll be ready when Elon builds his colony there.
When did people stop understanding the distinction?
Cool stunt to say "asshole" on a funeral! Even better than John Cleese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkxCHybM6Ek
“I’m sorry” really is a great way to express contempt. I realized some years ago that I am not great at trading spontaneous insults, or “chirping” as it’s called in hockey culture (I don’t trade insults much off the ice). I needed a barb that could be counted on to belittle and enrage any hockey player, in response to any insult. I came up with “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” It works every time. Leaves guys sputtering.
I can imagine this working very well!
And I think it illustrates that we earthling-speakers are good at expressing contempt, and that the most sympathetic-sounding phrase can actually express contempt in real life.
Related: we earthlings are massive pattern-matchers and might perceive contempt in almost anything. We might be correctly interpreting others’ intentions or we might not. And we might be interpreting in good faith or we might not.
> It works every time. Leaves guys sputtering.
Do you never play the same opponents twice? If your insult is the same thing every time, it seems like eventually someone's going to think of a response.
I hadn't even noticed until the post (and this follow-up) that people really do disambiguate this phrase in this pedantic way. Side benefit of social ineptitude: not being correctly baited into such traps. I'm Sorry -> It's Not Your Fault -> I Hope It Gets Better, Or Related Blandities Clearly Expressing Sympathy And Condolences -> landmine avoided. With the right crowd, one can even turn it around on the receiving end: I'm Sorry -> Are You Really? -> laughtrack.wav -> awkward tension defused. Although really, the sort of person who plays such wordgames is generally not someone I care to be on good terms with anyway, so perhaps it's useful as a cheap sorting signal. Same as any number of other irritating linguistic tics making the rounds these days. "You can't have a healthy relationship if you don't communicate..."
One suspects generational affects (not effects, older people trying too hard not to be also use such sophistry to seem Hip), or a link to therapy culture, or any of the other Fully Generic Bogeymen...but this is unsatsifying since it doesn't really pose a causal mechanism. Prescriptivists want to know when the inflection point was! Gotta nip those frindles in the bud before Cascade triggers.
Repeating myself here, but: "I'm sorry we disagree" strikes the required conciliatory tone, is almost certainly true if not the whole truth, doesn't imply "I'm sorry you're a dumbass who is bad and wrong," AND sounds like something an Earthling would say.
And in cases where the person is not just wrong but acting badly (the drug-addicted cousin trying to extract money from you), not saying you're sorry for anything is also a perfectly valid option.
"That sucks" or "I sympathize" has had to replace "I'm sorry" in my marriage because otherwise we'll end up in an infinite "it's not your fault" loop :P This has also taught me the value of "you are forgiven" over "it's not your fault/not a big deal" when an apology is the intent.
After thinking about this a little more, I think there are actually three uses of “sorry”, not just two:
-Apologizing: “I’m sorry for eating your leftovers, I won’t do it again.”
-Sympathy: “I’m sorry (to hear that) your aunt died.”
-I wish I could help: “I’m sorry, I can’t let you into this area without a valid photo ID.”
The third one seems to be lumped in with the second, but I think the subtle differences between the two might be contributing to the disagreements around what the “non-apology sorry” does in practice.
And I think this third type is what we’re doing in an “I’m sorry you feel that way” situation, especially the kind that Scott is talking about, when it’s about expressing a belief or an argument that upsets someone.
For instance, let’s say I’m talking to my mother and she’s extremely upset that I don’t believe in God. I wish there were something I could do to resolve this, but at the same time, it’s not like I’m going to start believing in God. So the response is something like “Be that as it may, I don’t believe in God. I’m sorry.”
When I tell someone I can’t help, in a situation where they might expect that I can (intractable religious disagreement, letting them into a secure area), it feels like the “sorry” is expressing a different feeling than the “sorry” in the case of your aunt that I’ve never met. So the translation to “I am sad” might just cause more confusion.
The distinction between uses 2 and 3 is useful in thinking about this, but I’m not sure they are fundamentally different. Both express ‘Like you, I’m not happy about this’ and therefore put both speakers on the same side. ‘I guess you are sad about your aunt’s death and so am I’ - contrasted with the hypothetical where I am indifferent or pleased that she died. ‘I would like to let you in as you want but there’s a rule or a reason that you need ID’ - contrasted with the hypothetical where I am trying to keep you out.
I think the example of arguing with your mother about God is the real distinct case. In this case the message is: we are genuinely on different sides in this argument, but there’s a different question about whether you value your mother’s relationship/opinions/existence and on that question you do agree.
I sometimes use "I am sorry to hear that..." instead of "I am sorry" to tell the sorrow/regret version from the apology version.
These counter-meanings of "sorry" tripped me up as a kid. Two cases I can remember:
1. Saying "sorry" for an accidental harm, like knocking someone over. As a young child, I didn't think it made sense to apologize for an unintentional act, because the apology implied some level of ownership over the action. But really the point was to express that you felt bad for what happened to the other person, regardless of your perceived role in it.
2. I didn't understand when people said "I'm sorry" at funerals, since they would only have reason to be sorry if they'd personally been responsible for the death of your relative.
(#1 got me kicked out of an ice skating class at age 4 because I stubbornly refused to apologize for accidentally knocking someone over)
You own even unintentional accidents.
As an adult, yes. As a 4 year old, no. Even their intentional actions are mostly unintentional.
I sometimes hate being on the receiving end of this phrase and it's when I think I actually am owed an apology and the other person disagrees. I think when this type of disagreement exists there is a problem in the territory that won't be fixed by banning specific phrases like this one. I do think that... this particular phrase is maybe particularly grating because it can feel like it's trying to paper over that disagreement or something?
Maybe I'm old, but people I know say "condolences" all the time when appropriate.
> Ending on an etymological note - this is true! “Sorry” is not related to “sorrow”. According to Wiktionary, it is an old adjective form of “sore” (ie sore + y), and ultimately comes from an Old English word meaning “sad”.
This is what I'm seeing in etymological dictionaries too... but it is actually true? The same dictionaries give a derivation for sorrow as being from... a slightly different old English word with suspiciously similar meaning.
I mean they certainly came from words that were distinct over 1000 years ago, but are we sure they don't ultimately come from the same root?
Not that this has any relevance to any other aspect of the debate, but heh, it's interesting.
If you go all the way back to Proto-Indo-European (spoken 5,000+ years ago), "sorry" ultimately comes from *seh₂yro (“hard, rough, painful”), whereas "sorrow" comes from *swergʰ- (“watch over, worry; be ill, suffer”), which seem different enough in pronunciation and meaning.
It is possible (even likely), though, that the two words have influenced each other in the meantime to become closer in spelling, pronunciation, and meaning. For example, in Old English, "sorry" was "sāriġ" and "sorrow" was "sorg", so the first vowel of each word was written and pronounced differently from each other, whereas obviously in modern English the first vowel of each word is written and pronounced the same.
My favorite observation along those lines was an entry for the English prefix un-, which noted that its two distinct senses derived from different original prefixes that decayed into similar forms, at which point "similarity of sense between negation and reversal caused the two prefixes to become hopelessly confused".
As a speaker of a slavic language Czech, I used to found it confusing that "I am sorry" is at least sometimes seemingly used for both "Expressing regret" ("Mrzí mě to") and also "Expressing guilt" ("Promiň"). We have much less ambiguous terms for that, I am curious how is it in other languages.
I love hearing that. My impression from learning Latin language is that this distinction is clear in those languages as well. There seem to be at least: "I apologize" "Condolences" and "Pardon me" and the situations in which they're used are fairly clear.
I'm curious about something, and I hope it's OK to ask.
Does your expression for guilt have any connotation of regret? Is that optional? Does it convey something like "This is my fault, but I'd do it again if I had the chance"?
German "Es tut mir leid" has the same ambiguous meaning as "I'm sorry", and even the same stupid answer "Nicht deine Schuld" ("Not your fault")
Re: Cvantez’s comment:
I’m 20 and I basically didn’t realize that I could use “I’m sorry” to express condolences until I was about 16 years old. Before then, “I’m sorry” only meant “I apologize”. I think this is somewhat common among my generation
I think it's pretty normal developmentally too. I don't think kids younger than 16 or so are expected socially to express condolences to adults. And between kids of the same age, they likely would have other ways of conveying sympathy.
I propose, instead of saying "I'm sorry you feel that way", we switch to the similar but more clarifying "your emotions are depressing."
Genuinely think "bummer, dude" might be a more socially successful and less hurtful response to "you have deeply hurt me and should change your actions in response."
I don't spend enough time on a surfboard to be able to say that.
1. Express respect or empathy, explicitly.
2. Express disagreement, perhaps vaguely if you want to shut down further conversation.
This has more of a cognitive load for the speaker, certainly. But that makes it a mildly expensive signal. Some things are more valuable because they are more difficult. Though it's unfortunate for those without the current mental capacity to manage such a statement. (A group I fall firmly into when I am tired.)
Re: the first topic, I tend to like variations on "You have my sympathy" when "Sorry" feels like an apology and inappropriate. Obviously not a great option when the point of friction is a difference of opinion.
As a Catholic I submit that the Sacrament of Confession is useful here because it makes you pay: attention to what you actually mean. It's hard not to notice the difference between repenting and trying to say something nice to smooth over social situations. (Maybe there should be more depictions in fiction that don't involve guns, tape recorders, etc.)
Religion can bring some clarity to forgiveness too. "It's okay" is a terrible answer to an apology if taken to mean that the offense is okay. "We're cool" is better. Of course, the fun response when someone apologizes to you is "go and sin no more" but it might not be effective in, say, a marriage. I wish I had the guts to try it.
Did someone necessarily sin if an honest misunderstanding occurred? It seems to me that an apology might be appropriate in sinless situations.
Almost certainly not mortal, because the three conditions are not present: grave matter, full knowledge, full consent. Let's say I'm proud of my opinions on the Norwegian Leather Industry, so that when you challenge me, it's annoying, and although I stay polite, I give off subtle cues you've pissed me off. Grave matter? No, I'm as polite as I can be given my enormous ego, no-one is getting violent or abusive. Full knowledge? We're talking seriously subtle cues. My dad used to scratch his neck when we pissed him off. Did he know? Quite possibly not, we all have these tics. Similar story for full consent. So no mortal sin - good for me! But clearly in that situation I don't have the right sense of proportion about these things. So there may well be venial sin, or just imperfection.
As Catholics humility should teach us we sometimes fail in the truth (e.g by making hasty judgements) or fail in charity when communicating the truth (e.g getting defensive when challenged) so an apology may be appropriate even if I'm not consciously aware I've done anything wrong - the subtext would be "I'm sorry for any venial sins or imperfections which have caused this situation to escalate".
"> Suppose you are a college speaker, advocating a political point which you believe to be true and important. Someone in the audience says they’re triggered by it and now you’ve traumatized them."
This is why I love trigger warnings. It puts the onus on vulnerable people to leave a conversation that might hurt them, not on the speaker to alter their behavior. If the listener's trauma was somewhat predictable, saying that you'll warn people in the future seems sufficient to say "I give weight to the notion that you were hurt, but I'm not going to alter my message."
It's funny I think trigger warnings are maybe more a comfort to speakers than to people with trauma. The research says they're not that useful because people with trauma can have such a huge variety of triggers and they can come up in literally any context at all. I can see maybe some limited content warnings for classes or lectures that get into disturbing topics -- sexual violence, child abuse, etc.
But if you're someone with PTSD like symptoms, the world can't be made to feel safe with trigger warnings. So maybe it's more for speakers to feel like they've "done something" and for everyone else who just would rather be prepared before hearing something disturbing.
> But if you're someone with PTSD like symptoms, the world can't be made to feel safe with trigger warnings. So maybe it's more for speakers to feel like they've "done something" and for everyone else who just would rather be prepared before hearing something disturbing.
The first part is my experience, too. And the second... yeah, I think it's more for the speaker's benefit, to make them feel good about themselves. I sometimes have to work hard to not interpret the "standard" politically-slanted list of potential triggers as a big "fuck-you" to people who aren't covered by them; that is, as a way of saying "if you suffer from these things, we care, but if you suffer from something else, you deserve it". But I suppose at those times I'm already partly triggered anyway. :-/
Right, that's another problem with trigger warnings is that they presume to cover "what's important" leaving anyone with other experiences in the category of "not worth mentioning." It seems better to me to acknowledge openly that people with for real trauma symptoms may be triggered by a huge range of things and none of them is more important than another.
At the point that we started trying to protect everyone from experiencing discomfort, I think we entered the wrong territory.
Potential universal replacement: "TRIGGER WARNING: Life's tough. Get a helmet."
… hmmmm.
If there is a slur treadmill happening around this concept, is that the influence of victim culture trying to eat “there exists an accepted way to stand one's ground and retain mutual dignity when one party feels offended by proceeding in a certain direction”?
You quote Aeon as saying
>The main complaint about this expression is that it’s “not a real apology,” and that’s true, it isn’t. The error is in thinking it is therefore a fake apology.
and further down you say
>Second, we need to figure out some kind of alternative and coordinate to protect it from being slur-cascaded in turn.
I think the reason that it's slur cascaded is that Aeon isn't quite right - it's not /automatically/ a fake apology, but it's very often used as one because it's easy to mistake for one.
Alternatives will get slur cascaded if, but only if, they're easy to mistake for apologies. So formulae like
"I'm afraid I'm not going to apologise, but I do acknowledge and regret the distress I've caused"
won't hit the same problems that "I'm sorry you feel that way" does (but they also won't serve the purpose it's mostly used for, which is making people feel that they've been apologised to without actually having to apologise to them, nearly as well)
"Suppose you are a college speaker, advocating a political point which you believe to be true and important. Someone in the audience says they’re triggered by it and now you’ve traumatized them. You want to express sympathy. But you’re not going to stop going to colleges and speaking about this topic. Maybe you won’t even change the exact text of your speech."
------------------------------
I get the desire to be sympathetic while standing firm to what you said. And sometimes it might be possible to do both. But in a lot of cases, it won't be. In a lot of cases, what is causing the trigger/trauma is not merely the way you presented the idea, but the core idea itself. The core idea is what is upsetting to this person.
In that situation, you either stand by your core point/idea or you don't. If you stand by your core point, then the person speaking out against it is not likely to be soothed by anything else that you say. You need to choose what's more important to you - not traumatizing the person who is triggered by you, or standing firm by what you believe. "How confident am I in what I'm saying here?" and "How important do I think my core point is?" might be good things to consider here.
Sometimes you just can't be both "Nice Person" and "Champion of Truth". Sometimes you have to choose between the two, at least in the moment. This doesn't mean you need to be a troll when you choose "Champion of Truth", just that you don't make futile attempts to sooth the situation.
That was quite the roller coaster. The first couple of highlighted comments made me think I had been using the word "sorry" wrong this whole time, that it's specifically a form of the word sorrow and doesn't at all express regret. Then the end pulls an epic twist where it's revealed that "sorry" and "sorrow" aren't actually directly connected like that ("Despite the similarity in form and meaning, not related to sorrow", according to the aforementioned Wiktionary). Looks like both of those meanings of the word are valid (at least according to Wiktionary and to other dictionaries), so it's entirely understandable when there are misunderstandings.
I found that part dubious... If “sorry” is from an old English word meaning “sad”, I find it very hard to believe it’s not related in some way to “sorrow”
Agreed, it would be quite a coincidence if there wasn't some minimal connection, like a forking point of their predecessor words. It wouldn't surprise me if they were just very distantly related, as opposed to entirely "not related".
I'm sorry you feel that way, and I mean that literally. I never meant to upset you. I do stand by what I said though.
I just say "my intent isn't to offend" or "I feel bad that we don't agree." Perfectly normal speech in conversation.
I think the overcorrection of "I'm sorry" as condolences is related to a different misuse of "I'm sorry"--as a verbal tic to deflect judgment for an action, whether or not the action is actually regretted. "I'm sorry" as "please don't hurt me," essentially. I think it's probably not great for your psyche to go around compulsively genuflecting in this way, and if someone apologizes to for an unintentional behavior, I will call them out on it, even if I think they just mean "I regret that this impact you negatively," because I think it impacts *them* negatively to apologize for eg ticcing or incontinence (I work with kids with disabilities and adults with dementia so these are my central examples lately). I know others do this too, and I suspect that this behavior expanded to cover the sorry-condolence usage. My generation let "I'm sorry" get *way* out of hand in the sense I mentioned above and maybe this inspired some excess in reining it back on, which would explain the timing of the onset of "I'm sorry" literalism.
Now "sorry" is a little wrecked for me altogether. A word that's caused this much confusion and debate can't do the emotional heavy lifting of both apology and sympathy. It could have done one or the other, but it's broken and just always sounds tinny to me, even if I know it's sincerely meant, and I try to avoid it. As for what to say when something horrible happens, I favor basic emotional validation ("that's awful, I can't imagine how you're feeling" or "I was devastated when that happened to me"--validation, by the way, is conveying to someone that you understand them, not that you approve of them or that what's going on is good and they should do it more, and it's a surprisingly powerful rhetorical tool in practice) paired to the sentiment that I wish the bad thing actually had not happened.
"The idea was - sometimes women are uncomfortable with sex but too afraid to speak up, so men should directly ask “may I have sex with you?”. Or you could go even further - some women were comfortable with some sex acts but uncomfortable with others, so you should ask permission for each specific act: “May I put my penis in your vagina?”
This 100% solves the problem with no downsides - except that if any man actually did this, the woman would immediately suspect him of being a Martian spy. I’m not happy with the fact that this convenient solution wouldn’t work - just not deluded enough to deny it."
Honestly, this was one of the nice things about kink. You could just remind them of their safeword every so often to make it clear you'd stop if they asked you to.
Actually what happens in real life is you get arrested for solicitation and do five years because you tried to get explicit consent before wasting money on that Uber. Yes that really happened to me. My advice to any guy now is never get consent because all that does is opens yourself up to risk as solicitation is an effective strict liability speech crime whereas rape requires both intent and action which is harder to prove.
Wow, that's awful! I never heard of that. Thanks for warning me. Just shows how biased the system is against men.
I think more and more, I'm starting to realize some kind of men's rights activism should be the focus of the second half of my life. Not sure what would actually be effective though.
I don't understand your comment at all - are you trying to have sex with an Uber driver?
No. American law defines prostitution as expending resources for sex though it's highly selectively prosecuted or all of America would be in prison. A woman above the age of consent I was talking to for weeks mentioned she was horny and asked if she could come over and I pick up the Uber. I said sure as long as we were going to fk as I'm not a charity and not trying to waste my cash. She said ok, didn't show, and the next day I was arrested for solicitation and a year later a jury found guilty on my words alone. I was given five years no parole because God forbid I asked for explicit consent.
I'm sorry that happened to you, and thanks for explaining it to me.
My first thought was that asking for affirmative consent beforehand seems impossible. Although consent is not like a contract, it reminds me of an "unenforceable contract." If the woman had replied, "Sorry, I'm legally incapable of giving that kind of consent because I reserve the right to say no once I arrive," what would you have said or done?
I wonder if the norm that "asking for consent is unattractive" is itself downstream of the legal status of consent and solicitation.
Thinking about all this is making me rapidly lose what modicum of respect I used to have for that ancient metoo movement
The funeral "I'm sorry your relative died" example where they say "Why are you sorry?" is an emotional deflection because that person is uncomfortable with sympathy and hasn't got the social graces to cover for it so they say something pedantic instead. Pedantry is a common cope for social anxiety. They're not criticizing us for saying the wrong thing and there's no need to respond to it.
I think Americans used to have more social graces so that everyone would know to say "Thank you" when someone says "I'm sorry your cat died" even if the sympathy made them a little uncomfortable. I wonder if this is an issue in other English speaking countries or if things like it come up in other languages. Other countries seem to have more intact norms for social interactions, but I could be making that up.
That seems accurate to me. To be snarky myself, I kinda sorta blame people who encounter little true grief early in their lives, but observe much staged grief, and who reflexively imitate the snark found in their media.
Huh. I learned something about myself today. I wouldn't say "Why are you sorry my relative died?" but I definitely use pedantry to cover for social anxiety and should stop. Good call.
One way to practice shifting that is to orient more towards questions than statements when you talk to other people. Being curious and asking open-ended questions of other people and then refraining from the urge to want to tell other people all the things we know about something. Just practicing staying with other people's experience any amount more. We're all works in progress this way -- being open to trying other things is the whole ballgame and it sounds like you are that.
Yes, sometimes the corresponding phrase just becomes a verbal acknowledgement, "It's not your fault" falls into this for me sort of a way of saying "life happens" where as I would feel odd saying "why are you sorry".
"It's not your fault" feels like willful misunderstanding to me in the same way as "why are you sorry?" There's no way anyone is saying in this funeral situation "I'm sorry for my part in causing the death of your relative." We know this.
If a person wants a different kind of emotional deflection because "Thank you" doesn't sit right, one can say "This is life" or some other benign neutral thing to indicate "even though this is happening, I want you to know I'm okay."
Of course it's fine if someone says these things -- "it's not your fault" or "you've got nothing to be sorry for" or "you don't need to be sorry" -- because they're already dealing with enough if their loved one just died. We don't need to take offense or make a deal out of it. But it does read to me as immature, like if someone hasn't learned yet to accept a compliment graciously. It's just part of growing up that we learn to say things like "Thank you" cleanly without needing to duck or shift or be cute or react some other way.
I think you nailed it. That and grief can produce some anger and give you a self-pitying excuse to be mildly rude to another person.
Oh yeah, the grief producing anger and that getting displaced to the other person is a good addition!
I’m utterly shocked that anybody thinks that sorry is just an expression of apologetic guilt. The standard formula in British English to express sorrow after a death is “I’m sorry for your loss”, and there’s been no controversy about this for the very long time it’s been in use. It’s always been clear to be that the phrase comes from feeling sorrow. If you wanted to be a pedant you could go the other way - you could argue that feeling sorry (ie sorrow) isn’t the same as feeling guilty, so please apologise.
But don’t do that either.
Are significant numbers of people really uncomfortable with receiving sympathy? It sounds plausible but makes me wonder why.
I checked with the people in my house and we all are. Let's do an informal poll. If you mean "really" in the sense of for real but not in the sense of very. Mildly uncomfortable.
In my case, it's not emotional deflection, I just don't think the vast majority of people actually do care that a relative of mine died. It's a subtle way to say "no thanks" to well-meaning but insincere expression of empathy. I don't expect anyone to care that my grandma died outside of my immediate family and my closest friends. It's totally fine for people outside those two groups not to care. I guess I could just say "thanks : )" but I feel like I already have to play along with enough silly fictions in every day social interactions and the death of a relative should be one of the few times where I don't have to pretend in order to spare others' feelings.
Nick Fuentes just called Scott a fed:
https://rumble.com/v5dojh8-america-first-ep.-1383.html?start=8580
Guy that gets immunity from Jan 6 calling other people feds😂
So, this entire blog is a giant honeypot to catch people who endorse niceness, community, and civilization? Darn!
I got Scott's argument in the original post. I agree with it, and it was well written.
Still, it wasn't the post I thought, and hoped, he was going to write. I thought he was going to write a defense of "non-apology apologies." I really would have liked to see that. I suspect that non-apology apologies aren't quite as bad as people say they are and may be good in some way. I don't have the chops to flesh out what I mean, but I'd really like to see someone take a stab at it.
My wish, of course, doesn't mean Scott should write that post. It's his blog, not mine. Also: he might not agree that non-apology apologies are worth defending.
Unlike slurs, there's not really an appropriate replacement. And the hyperstitious cascade here only happens in the mind of those who are too therapy-cultured to recognize that a feeling is a state of mind and not base reality. I will not back down and you should not either. For the good of themselves and society, people need to learn that feelings are just feelings, and they can choose to feel a certain way or not about the fact that you disagree with them.
Minds Almost Meeting (Agnes Callard and Robin Hanson's podcast) has an episode that discusses some of the apparent contradictions of apology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Gc3JkHubc&t=596s
"But it’s hard to think up new phrases."
How did you get to the point where you needed to say that you're sorry they feel that way, in the first place? Presumably by way of a dialogue, one in which you and they were figuring out how to string words together in novel ways to convey specific thoughts in a specific context. In real time, one sentence at a time.
But when someone has been offended, suddenly this ability goes away? *Now* you can only communicate by reciting stock phrases? I'm not buying that,
Particularly because you just demonstrated that ability in two hypothetical cases, when you came up with "I apologize for stepping on your foot", and "I'm sad that your relative died". Both of which are perfectly adequate if that is indeed what you meant to convey, and avoid the ambiguity of "sorry", Did it really take you more than a few seconds to come up with either?
This is the point - Scott's original post takes for granted the ability to eloquently state a case for not doing something, but then just assumes it's impossible to manage feelings in a fraught situation without a stock phrase to do so.
I agree it's *hard* to convince your drug addict cousin to both continue their relationship with you and to stop asking you for drug money. I'd rate it as a black diamond social interaction ski slope. But that very difficulty makes retreating into a stock apology, especially one that has a documented history of *not working,* an even worse decision.
It's hard to say this without being stigmatizing but I get that there's a higher rate of autism, or just generally low cognitive empathy in this community. And that lots of readers are basically looking for easy tips on how to navigate these situations, not answers like "figure it out or you don't care."
But "a phrase you say every time this situation comes up" isn't available for this. Probably the best you can do is repeat exactly their words back to you, restate your case, and then end the conversation definitively - "I hear you saying that my speech triggered you due to the language I used, and I understand that upset you. I still feel that I am making an important point and so I need to use that language, but will keep your feelings in mind in the future. I wish we could agree on this, but I don't think we will." That may also sound Martian but I've used it a lot, and it basically works as well as any other standardized strategy.
I routinely have to tell people no and contradict them. When it happens that they could be upset, I say either "I don't want you to feel like I'm insensitive to (what you want or value)..." Or "I know you value x a lot." It's affirmative of their internal state rather than dismissive. At the same time it defends one's own position as separate from theirs.
Here's a way of reading why ISYFTW can be offensive:
We say "I'm sorry" in two different situations: (1) I apologise for something bad that I did - canonically, I stepped on your foot; (2) I feel sorrow for something bad that happened to you, which was nothing to do with me and I'm powerless to change anything about - canonically, your dog died. (2) is often followed up with a question, "Is there anything I can do?" because there isn't really anything; certainly there isn't any obligation on you or anything you *ought* to be doing now; but out of sympathy, you'd be very open to doing a favour for the bereaved if they ask.
ISYFTW is said after you did something which caused Zhang San to feel bad. And you're expressing sorrow. But the canonical sorrow version also carries strong implications of distance - it was nothing to do with me, and there's nothing I can do to change it. In this case, it was something to do with you, and you could change it. But you're explicitly telling Zhang San that their feelings are unconnected to you (which they're not), and that you can't change it - which in context can only mean that you're not willing to change it.
So you can read - and I think people do read - ISYFTW as a form of social distancing: telling people that their emotions are not your concern. That's a pretty aggressive thing to do.
"Sorry" can also be used to express simple regret that one is in a certain situation: "I went on the whale watch and the sea got rough and boy was I sorry I was on that boat." I think the "sorry" in ISYFTW is mostly that kind: I regret being in a situation where you actively object to something I'm doing that I think is fine. But because "sorry" can also mean "sad" it functions as a fig leaf on a sentence that means "you think something I did was wrong and hurtful and I don't, and I wish I was not having to deal with your reaction right now."
I think that defining any *fixed* expression of regret is what creates the conditions for a cascade. The best way to demonstrate the sincerity of the response is by customizing it to the context. Which demonstrates that you've actually paid attention to and reflected on what is going on, which demonstrates that your expression of regret is meaningful and not rote. "I wish I didn't have to upset you, but I just couldn't bear it if my money allowed you to OD." "If I'd known it would re-traumatize you I would have waited until you were absent to talk about it."
I feel like intonation matters a lot. Said right "duude, that sucks" could get you through a lot of these situations. I grant however, that a lot of this comes down to charisma and the ability to perform which isn't a scaleable replacement for a phrase, even though I guess I'm arguing for people with can get the manner right it in practice is.
I guess the other alternative is to NVC style articulate the other person's perspective, though that can be unwealdy in practice.
Maybe there exists a kind of grammaticality/acceptability fine distinction on the emotional front. So if grammaticality is the more formal side, then "emotional grammaticality" for ISYFTW may be disputed, and emotional acceptability might be separately disputed but one person may feel differently about those, and different people will tend to have more "acceptability" disputes, just as with linguistic versions.
So then the emotional acceptability is judged negative by a lot of people, even (perhaps) while the emotional grammaticality might by judged positively, so this may be a case where we're watching a phrase on the verge of becoming emotionally unacceptable, just like many slurs have done.
Now that I think about, I don't think there can be any alternative to ISYFTW that works any better.
Like, suppose you do something that offends someone, like, in the example of the first post, you refuse to subsidize your family member's drug addiction and they get offended by this.
They in that moment, are not looking for compassion or empathy. They are looking for drug money. Any response that displays compassion but gives no drug money would be "offensive" to them. Maybe what they want, if they can't get drug money, is at least a reason as to why you won't give them drug money. since then they could argue with your reason. But ISYFTW is just patronizing, offers no reason and refuses the engage with the original grievance all together.
In fact, perhaps the fact that ISYFTW is considered "bad" makes it work better at it's intended purpose. If someone is mad at you for something unreasonable and you want to be nice to them and project an attitude of compassion and caring and validate their feelings but not their specific demands, what better way to do that then to give them a socially acceptable justification for their feelings of anger at you by saying this universally recognized "bad" phrase that doesn't actually imply any specific ill will towards them.
OK, wow. The net effect of reading this was to push me into thinking that your entire framework around hyperstitious slurs--of which I was already somewhat skeptical--is fatally flawed and unsalvagable. In particular reading this sentence felt like stumbling into an alternate universe:
"I think this is probably true in the long run - but if you make it too easy, they’ll just take the next useful word and do the same thing with it. "
That's not how language works! Oh my, is that not ever how language works. There's no "they" there. Nobody's deciding to take Perfectly Innocuous Phrases and Ruin Them for All Time, and CERTAINLY nobody is following a road map where they start in on the next phrase once the project of ruining the current one is finished. There's no plan, there's no intent, and I can pretty much guarantee that pushing back is going to do absolutely nothing except harm your ability to communicate effectively with other humans.
I don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of how language works, but this much I do understand: most of it is subconscious. Some quirk or facet of how the particular phrasing collides with our brain must have made people pick out "I'm sorry that you feel that way" as a useful vehicle for expressing condescension and passive-aggression. The kernel of truth in the Hyperstitious Slur schema is that this is self-reinforcing: hearing others use it that way make that usage more available and more central[1], so people will more often pattern-match it to condescension than to genuine sympathy. Pushing back against that processes is *technically* possible, but only in the same sense that pushing back against the tide with teaspoons is technically possible: the driving force behind the shift ISN'T conscious human attempts to engineer the language, so you're starting the fight at a massive disadvantage, and it's not clear that you can ever actually win.
Viewed from this angle, people telling you "don't use X, it's a slur" or "don't say it like that, it sounds condescending" are not enemy agents trying to engineer a language shift for nefarious reasons, they're helpful souls informing you of the possible disconnect between what you think you're saying and what your audience will think they're hearing. The only rational response--rational in the "rational agents should win" sense--is to take note of this info and shift your communication patterns accordingly. You SHOULD be a strict linguistic descriptivist: arguing that the word you're using REALLY means X when you know people will hear it as meaning Y is every bit as irrational as arguing that your bullet SHOULD have hit the bullseye instead of the outer ring. Don't argue with reality: improve your aim!
[1] For an innocuous example, picture the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the noun "strand." If it wasn't a beach, congratulations: you're among the vast, vast majority of English speakers who's heard that word refer to fibers more often than coasts. You didn't choose that centrality relation, and might not be able to change it even if you tried.
>There's no "they" there.
Of course there are. Most anybody with a modicum of power is eager to police language. Whether they're likely to be successful in the long term is another question of course. You seem to be making a crazily strong claim though, that nobody ever managed to intentionally influence how language is used, and while it probably isn't trivial to disprove, it's certainly far outside the Overton window.
"You seem to be making a crazily strong claim though, that nobody ever managed to intentionally influence how language is used"
I am not intending to make a claim that strong, no. But the words "nobody," "ever," "intentionally" and "influence" are doing a lot of work here. Consider the phrase "nobody ever intentionally managed to win the lottery." Obviously it's false. But "intent to win the lottery" isn't actually going to get you very far towards winning the lottery, is it?
Now, I don't think "winning the lottery" is a great analogy for influencing language. But something like "becoming famous" might not be a bad one. It's also not true that "nobody ever intentionally managed to become famous," but neither intent nor any amount of effort on your part will provide any guarantee of getting you there. The main thing you need to become famous is the right sort of skills and effort paired with the right sort of luck: if you're going to become famous by doing X, you need there to be an X-shaped hole in the social landscape for you to fit in. You can maybe, slightly, at the margins "create" an opportunity for yourself, but mostly that will look like a combination of chiselling a bit at a nearly-X-shaped hole to make it more X-shaped, and choosing your X to better match the holes that already exist. There are a LOT of ways you could try to become famous that will never, ever work, and even among the ways that could possibly work, the vast majority of individual attempts will fail. And I would venture to guess that MOST people who become famous aren't actually trying only or specifically to become famous: they're trying to do something else they want to do, of which fame is a happy (or sometimes unhappy) side effect.
So too with changing the language. It's possible to succeed, and it's even possible to succeed intentionally. But it's not possible to pick an arbitrary direction and succeed intentionally in that direction. Scott's mistake is that he's picking the wrong sort of direction, the distinctly wrong sort. The entire reason he's picking the direction is because there's a strong trend in the opposite direction: noticing the trend is really strong evidence that the opposite direction is unfruitful. It's like noticing that people are starting to become famous as rail barons, and responding to this information by investing heavily in horse-drawn overland transport businesses. No amount of money you can throw into it is going to reverse the process by which the horse is becoming obsolete AND thinking that the rail barons themselves are the cause of that incipient obsolescence is making a pretty substantial mistake in understanding the world.
I wrote a more detailed view of how I think linguistic change works as a reply to my first comment: hopefully that provides more clarity.
I think there's two different things going on here. One is 'bottom-up' and the other is 'top-down'.
'Bottom-up' is, yes, the organic development of language. It's words and common phrases falling in and out of fashion due to how most people feel about them. This has probably been going on as long as language itself has existed.
In recent decades, there's been an increasing push from people in power and institutions to take control of this process, causing a 'top-down' version of this process. Sheryl Sandberg's 'ban bossy' campaign is a good example of this. 'Bossy' was not a particularly contentious word before this campaign started, and without this campaign, it would likely have remained a non-contentious word. Other examples of this are commonly understood and commonly used words that are banned on certain social media sites, like 'kill', 'rape', and 'pedophile'. "Unalive" has legit become a thing, at least on the internet, just because of this TOP-DOWN attempt to stop people from using the word 'kill'.
Scott is correct to notice these top-down efforts to change language and how they can be harmful. But I think he's made a mistake on the specific case of "Sorry you feel that way". I think opposition is less top-down than bottom-up. I think most people genuinely dislike the phrase. It's not just a small minority of influencers trying to squash it in a top-down fashion, it's something that probably most people dislike for various reasons.
So basically, Scott is right about hyperstitious slurs, it's just that "sorry you feel that way" isn't really one of them. Nobody likes insincere apologies, and probably most people view "sorry you feel that way" in that light, regardless of the intent in any specific instance.
"Sheryl Sandberg's 'ban bossy' campaign is a good example of this."
I think this is an excellent example, thank you! I will notice the word "bossy" is still very much in use, and even in heavily left-leaning spaces (at least, the ones I frequent) doesn't even seem particularly put-upon.
The most I can credit this effort is to notice that there IS an idea that describing a woman as "bossy" might be applying a sexist double-standard in many cases. However, I'm skeptical that Sheryl Sandberg (whoever she is) was particularly influential in this idea coming into existence. Rather, I think she noticed a thing about the connotations and the usage of the word--a thing that was there and true before she noticed it--and decided to try this particular strategy for being loud about it (for whatever mix of reasons motivates her). I don't think she *created* those connotations and usage: they were there to be noticed, undoubtedly other people were also noticing them and the best one can reasonably credit her with is a small amount of helping to create common knowledge.
If two decades from now the word "bossy" is in-general considered verboten, I'm prepared to eat some measure of crow. If history remembers Sharyl Sandberg as being responsible, I'm prepared to eat A LOT of crow.
"Other examples of this are commonly understood and commonly used words that are banned on certain social media sites, like 'kill', 'rape', and 'pedophile'. "
Also great examples, but also not for the reasons you seem to think. Social media companies have a pretty astonishing amount of power, but their top-down efforts both plainly fail at what they're intending to do, and succeed at things they're not intending.
Consider "kill" vs "unalive." I cannot psychically peer into Mark Zuckerberg's skull, but I really, really strongly suspect that it was NOT the intent of him or anyone else at Facebook to create this word replacement. If it was, of course, then they're pretty definitely failing: in any context other than social media sites that ban "kill" people use the word "kill" in the same ways and manners and with the same frequencies as they always have. I don't think there's even the tiniest chance that the word "kill" gets removed from the modal English-speaker's vocabulary anytime soon, nor do I think social media is going to cause much shift in how it's used in other contexts. "Unalive" has started to be used on its own somewhat, but it's not really used as a one-for-replacement for kill. Played the most straight it's used as a euphemism the same way "neutralize" was, and of course that and other euphemisms already existed. But I expect most of the usage is more for purposes of ironic emphasis: using a quirky, non-standard verb makes it stand out more, and the fact that (at present) it evokes ham-handed social media censorship gives just a little extra touch of edge to whatever you're saying.
But of course, trying to effect that word replacement was almost certainly NOT their goal. The goal in those sorts of bans seems to instead be to try to bar certain sorts of discussions, particularly discussions of violence, in a scalable way.[1] And of course on those terms in failed miserably. People still talk about whatever they want to talk about, they just have to do it in a slightly more inconvenient way. And so again, even the fairly massive amount of power that companies like Facebook and the company-formly-known-as-Twitter wield[2], when applied to trying to change the people's language-use-patterns, still ends up looking embarrassingly like pushing back against the tide with teaspoons. Maybe Musk and Zuck are mighty enough to wield ladles instead, but the tide is still the tide.
[1] Very probably the REAL goal was some manner of legal ass-covering. "See, look, we tried our best to prevent violent incitement on our platform, but those dang violent inciters were just too clever and determined for us," or something like that.
[2] See, they can't even intentionally, robustly change their NAME, something they have complete formal, legal control over.
Trying to head off a certain sort of objection by sketching out how I think the process of languages changing DOES work, I present:
Agrajagagain’s Unprincipaled, Off-the-Cuff, Rectally-Sourced Theory of How Languages Evolve
(In which I loudly betray part of my educational background by my choice of description.)
I think you can model the current state of language as a point in a many-dimensional vector space, following the contours of some fitness function that determines how it changes over time. Not an especially mind-blowing observation, since you can model just about anything this way if you’re determined.
Anyhow, I think at any particular time, changes in the language mostly follow the contours of the landscape in the way you’d expect: they’ll strongly tend to go down steep slopes and strongly tend to go up steep slopes. But there’s also a decent amount of random noise. Importantly, the contours of the landscape are partly determined by underlying features of human neurology, but also partly determined by culture, which is in turn partly determined by environment[1]. So if, for example, you take a community that all speaks the same language and divide it into two parts and wait a few hundred years, the divergence in their languages will partly be determined by random noise and partly by the cultural differences induced by the split, and good friggin luck telling which one is which. Part of what makes this all difficult is the landscape is mostly invisible: you can deduce some of its features by observing recent changes in language use, and some by squinting hard enough at your own brain: Scott’s “if you say that you’ll sound like a Martian” is a good example of doing this to determine where a particularly steep slope lies.
How do people deliberately trying to influence language fit in here? Well, humans are certainly aware enough of language and its uses, and good enough at thinking meta, to notice the process and attempt to influence it. But “attempt” is key. I think most of these attempts are going to be pretty much indistinguishable from random noise. Which is to say, IF an attempt succeeds, and that’s a very, very big if, it will succeed as much by luck as by human effort. Particularly, it needs to be lucky enough to be pushing on the language in a direction that it can possibly go. Maybe an exceptionally powerful human–exceptionally powerful in ways that specifically relate to language use, like a dictator with total control over his country’s national media–can push a language up a shallow slope, for a while. If it’s a short, shallow slope then perhaps they will manage to crest it and reach more level ground where they don’t have to push, at least for a while. But I don’t think anything short of mind control or sci-fi dystopian levels of media and social control are ever going to push language up a long, steep slope. Most of the time people “intentionally” influence language, what they are really, actually doing is noticing that the landscape is particularly flat in some particular direction, and pushing in a direction that’s easy to go. You have to be lucky to notice that at all, and continue being lucky in having the direction stay easy, not run into any steep slopes going somewhere you don’t want and in not having noise or other peoples’ efforts deflect things in a way that screws you up[2].
So what successful efforts to influence language might look like are:
1. Creating a new term for something that people were badly wanted to talk about but lacked the words for.
2. Coming up with a “catchy” new way to say something people were already saying. “Catchy” on the meta level meaning that it’s got a nice, downward slope in that direction. On the object level this seems partly to be related to the actual auditory sound of the word/phrase (especially brevity) and partly to what other linguistic or social ideas it evokes associations with.
3. Pointing out something that a bunch of people had already privately noticed about language: “saying what everyone’s thinking.” Because the person pointing it out is helping create common knowledge, it might LOOK like they’re having a large, intentional impact on the language, but in fact they are not. Their efforts can only work because the system is ALREADY primed to leap into a new state: they might influence the outcome a little bit, but the change would almost certainly have happened regardless.
I think Scott’s entire schema around superstitious slurs comes from seeing 3 in action and mistaking correlation for causation. It’s only possible to “say what everyone’s thinking” when people are already thinking it. A word becomes a slur mostly because the landscape favors pejorative use over neutral or positive use. Once you’ve reached a point where people are pointing out its a slur and trying to get people to stop using it, it is FAR TO LATE to un-slurrify the word. The slurry his already mixed up and coursing downhill. That process is the REASON people are going around insisting its a slur, not the CAUSE of it: to a first approximation nobody gets a grudge against a word that was perfectly innocent or even mostly innocent. I’m emphatically not claiming that would-be language police have pure, selfless motives, mind you. But even the worst of them are still mostly, well, police not legislators: they’re mostly trying to enforce the law as they see it (which can be absolutely be done in harmful and obnoxious ways) not to make a new law out of thin air.
And often people who do this are just mistaken, and so don’t get anywhere. One example that comes to mind is the several occasions I’ve encountered people insisting that the word “stupid” is an ableist slur and shouldn’t be used. I cannot adequately convey the depth of my contempt for that position, but even these people aren’t pulling their crappy position out of literally nowhere. “Stupid” DOES get used pejoratively, quite a lot, and some of the usages DO pretty unmistakably show contempt and disdain for the cognitively disabled. But those aren’t the only, or even the primary usages of the word: it is load-bearing in modern English in a way that more distinctly slur-ish words like “retard” are not. Cutting “stupid” from our vocabularies would be quite inconvenient, and impact a whole lot of conversations that have nothing at all to do with ableism. And so I’ve never seen these people gain traction, and don’t ever expect to. I’ll admit that I still find myself inclined to push back, but it has more to do with not wanting to see their particular brand of failure cluttering up the discourse: I don’t really believe I’m going to influence any shift around the word use one way or another.
[1] Which of course is ALSO partly determined by culture and even language…arg. Complex things are complex.
[2] Which I want to stress might NOT at all look like pushing back in the opposite direction. It might take the form of a completely orthogonal push, or even one almost-but-not-quite aligned with yours in ways that produce results you don’t want. A totally not-at-all mind-killing example that came up recently is the word “woke.” It used to be used exclusively in leftist circles and have a clear-ish, narrow-ish meaning that make it at least somewhat good at describing some things. At some point it got popular enough for people outside the left to notice and some people (I assume mostly right-wing media personalities) discovered that a direction they could push it that was both very useful to them and (apparently) extremely, extremely easy. Probably not even an upward slope so much a small lip in front of a downhill ramp. The result is a word that means something totally different than it meant a few years ago, to the point of being almost meaningless. Everybody on the left seems to implicitly understand that well, this is what the word means now and there’s no turning back the clock: their use of it is almost exclusively ironic and/or mocking, when they use it at all.
Some of that is a result of the modern psychology movement though. CBT is big on never saying you are sorry unless you intentionally did something as otherwise it's just negative self talk. A lot of people are exposed to CBT, especially people that shape cultural narratives, hence I'm guessing a bunch of that "why" is coming out of that. I never say sorry anymore because I simply don't feel sad over something I had no control over so why would I say it. You can say politeness but many people internalize that sadness in a way that's harmful as they get anxiety about not feeling sad for something they shouldn't feel sad for anyways.
I don't know what to say that takes the place of the pro forma sorry anymore hence now I just come off as a giant aggressive asshole. I mean I am anyways but before I at least didn't come off that way. Now I just say "my bad, accident" or "eat a dick" if I accidentally do something and you get offended.
<Some of that is a result of the modern psychology movement though. CBT is big on never saying you are sorry unless you intentionally did something as otherwise it's just negative self talk.
Wait, I am a psychologist and I do CBT. I have never even encountered the idea that one should never say they are sorry unless that did something intentionally, and I have read books of theory & books of practical advice for practitioners, and also several self-help books I was thinking of recommending to patients. CBT isn't even mostly concerned with what people say to other people -- it's about what they're saying to themselves. And besides, simple common sense tells me, you, and everyone else that if you do harm by accident, you should still apologize -- like if you spill your coffee on someone because you stumble, or scrape their car while parallel parking, or call them by the wrong name. Of course you should say you're sorry! WTF??
Well I've been through four courses of CBT with four different providers over twenty years and universally they were all explictily against saying sorry so at least anecdotally you are in the minority in your field.
Wow. When they gave you that advice, did it seem reasonable to you, or did you argue? I mean, what about the situations I gave as examples?
Also, if you intentionally do something the other person does not like — seems like in many cases it would not make sense to say sorry. If I’m supervising someone and give them a project to do and they make clear they don’t want to do the project — it would be weird to apologize. I can see asking them why they don’t, then suggesting ways to make it less difficult. I can see basically saying, “well, this is a job and part of what you’re paid for is doing some unpleasant tasks.”. But why would I apologize?
Did the other things these therapists said seem sensible?
No it didn't seem reasonable but if you are in CBT obviously you have been convinced, or convinced yourself, (well short of the one time it was court ordered for me) you have cognitive errors (or else you wouldn't be in a CBT) hence you can't really trust your own cognition. I'm with you sometimes a meaningless pro forma apology is just a social nicety but they were adamant that isn't the case in the mentally ill population, only the normal population, in a manner similar to "anxiety is normal, anxiety in anxious people getting treatment isn't therefore you have a different bar for normal behavior". To use a hypochondria example "a normal person having chest pains should seek medical advice. A hypochondriac having chest pains should not given they have already been to the ER, cardiologist, etc for chest pains 150 times that year including the previous night and has a clean bill of health and going a 151st time is totemistic hence just reinforcing your negative cognitive behavior"
To your second part, you apologize (for intentionality) because you should have empathy (feel sad) for harming (or causing distress) the other party even if intentional as apologies (sad) aren't related to sorrow (as this entire blog post and comment section has made clear). So to all (minus court ordered) of my psychiatrists and psychologist points (and these were all CBT specialists, not generalist doing CBT) apologizing (feeling sadness or the low self esteem need to social desirability signal a feeling of sadness) is negative self talk as you have no control over a circumstance you had no intentionality over so quit doing it.
An example here (to your case) is parents who punish their kids. As a parent you should feel sad you spanked your kid doing something egregious enough to warrant it but likewise you still have to do it to teach the lesson. And you shouldn't avoid doing it because your kid will cry hence the apology.
PS: To your last point, nothing a psychologist has ever said to me seems reasonable as the field IMHO suffers giant agency and confirmation bias problems. The only mental health people that ever said anything that made sense to me were psychiatrists in-between their drug peddling time.
>To your last point, nothing a psychologist has ever said to me seems reasonable as the field IMHO suffers giant agency and confirmation bias problems. The only mental health people that ever said anything that made sense to me were psychiatrists in-between their drug peddling time.
That about the psychiatrists making more sense -- I'm not surprised to hear it. If they see their area of expertise as meds, then when they talk to the patient about non-med things they're not trying to Do Therapy, they're just using common sense and general friendliness, both of which are good stuff. It seems to me that you got a weird and unlikely-to-be-effective version of cognitive therapy that didn't even conform to common sense. Was it helpful at all, nonetheless?
"it seems to me that you got a weird and unlikely-to-be-effective version of cognitive therapy"
I don't believe that to be the case, one of the practitioners was pretty well regarded in the field and even had positively review book on CBT for his fellow practitioners, another was out of the US VA system which has a well known and lauded CBT program as part of their PTSD services that is big on repeatability, supposed EBM, formulaic, etc. The third I would fully agree was done by a a quack as was the fourth (court ordered).
As for did I get anything out of them, yes (good) and yes (bad) but overall they weren't effective treatments. Later EMDR got me half way and acceptance (per psychiatrist) the other half so I'd go as far as to say I'm now as good as I'm ever going to get which isn't great but vastly better than the previous three decades.
On the CBT positive column it at least provided me to tools to articulate my issues in a rational and specific manner using terms other mental health professional would understand as well as educating me on recognizing the why of many thing but that was it. On the CBT negative column it destroyed my life as it taught me to recognize when I was catastrophizing and so I did except the catastrophe actually happened and I distinctly remember at the time I was going through the catastrophizing tool drill and then afterwards I was like "thank you CBT for destroying my life"
On the psychiatrist thing, I don't really agree. I think what psychologists miss is some things really are pathological and therapy isn't the answer, i.e. hypnosis isn't going to cure your schizophrenia, talk therapy isn't going to resolve your anxiety issues which were brought on by a neurodegenerative disease. I will say my psychiatrist was the only person in thirty years that helped me with any modem of success and no I'm not drugs in a meaningful way (ad hoc), not his prescription but his actual mental health advice and solution.
This is one place where all that low-IQ "low decoupling" wins out. A small set of finely tooled phrases to contend with every possible situation doesn't exist, nor should it. Read the vibes and do your best. (That said, I've never had a grieving English speaker challenge me on "I'm sorry for your loss." Generational thing?)
The college speaker scenario, especially, reads strange to me. If you're in that position, then yes, you probably owe your audience member a few custom words in response, whether it's empathetic or dismissive. I agree with David Khoo – this can include (if genuinely felt) regret for the part where you, yes you, caused emotional hurt, even if it was necessary to do so for some theoretical higher cause. Failing that, go with honest scorn, but I don't understand the fear of committing any kind of apology at all.
Some people find it hard to grok that you could be legitimately very sad that your behavior caused someone pain without either:
-- Thinking you should change your behavior
-- Accept any fault
Many of them will outright say this is impossible. They will directly claim if you were actually sad you would change your behavior.
I think in many (most?) cases, those saying it's impossible are speaking in bad faith. They know it's possible, they just don't care. They want the change of behavior and/or the admission of fault, and the impossibility claim is an attempt to morally coerce one or both. After all, if you have such a psychopathic lack of empathy that you don't feel sad for hurting them, they'd be pretty justified in calling you a horrible person; and, lo and behold, the only way to demonstrate otherwise is to bow to their will and judgement.
> sorry and sorrow are not related words and do not mean the same thing.
Maybe the words' origins came by different paths, but when the conflation is as old as Shakespeare, I think you can be confident the meanings are indeed related.
PHOEBE
Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
SILVIUS
Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
By giving love your sorrow and my grief
Were both extermined.
As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 5
I can't help but feel like you're trying to solve a social problem with a linguistic approach.
Usually when a phrase gets a second meaning, it does not imply that people are stupid - it means the phrase used to express something else than it sounds like.
"I am sorry you feel that way" feels like 'fuck you' because you imply exactly what it says - you are sad that the other person does not share your internal logic and therefore got upset. You're not sorry you said what you said, you're sorry they can't see your point. And maybe you are legitimately sad - like when my racist relatives don't agree with me. I am sad they are bigots, but when I say 'I'm sorry you feel that way' I am absolutely condescending them. They are wrong, I am right, and their feelings are indeed not really valid.
This same phenomenon would happen with any other phrase you're using. What you really need is an acknowledgement of the feeling, and the strength to stand the awkwardness of having upset someone. So this is more of a "I can see that you're upset" or "I know this line of thinking makes you uncomfortable" kind of situation. You feeling sad doesn't make them feel better; you expressing your sad is to make yourself feel better. If you wanna talk about how you're sad, it's a good thing to say. If you don't, it doesn't really concern them - so really think about what you're actually trying to say!
"I don't wanna fight"? "I really dislike that we disagree on this topic"? "How you view the world makes me sad because it makes me feel distant from you/ like you have some assumptions that really suck"? "I am uncomfortable, and I still like you, even if we disagree on this"?
<You are sad that the other person does not share your internal logic and therefore got upset. You're not sorry you said what you said, you're sorry they can't see your point.
Yes, I agree. ISYFTW is a refusal to take someone's complaint seriously, coupled with a use of the word "sorry" that is quite unlike the use where it means *sad.* I don't think the "sorry" in "sorry they can't see your point" means anything like *sad*. Seems to me that in "sorry they can't see your point" the "sorry" is the same "sorry" as the one in "I ate clam chowder right before the whale watch and once the seas got rough man was I sorry I'd eaten it." "Sorry" express regret, unhappiness with a situation, a wish that something was not the case.
As for the emotion side , in the examples people are using -- Scott's 3 examples, you with your racist relatives -- it's unlikely the person whose point the others do not see is mostly feeling sad. Irritated, insulted, hurt and frustrated all seem likelier.
After reading this, I like “I’m sad that you feel that way.” It is not a fake apology, and it expresses sympathy.
I expect that it will, however, lead to more arguments. The “fake apology” part of ISYFTW allows the person to pretend to believe your fake apology if they do not want to escalate. People use vagueness all the time to allow face-saving options. “Would you like to come upstairs to see my etchings?” allows everyone to pretend that there was no sexual advance (example from Steven Pinker). ISYFTW allows everyone to pretend that the offense has been satisfied.
So: “sad” is more direct and honest, “sorry” offers more conciliatory vagueness but can really piss off a subset of people who think “fake apologies” are the worst. I guess one just has to read the situation.
Per Merriam-webster, we are arguing over what is already established, meanings 1a vs 1b at Merriam-Webster's definition of "sorry": http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sorry
And yes, per M-W, it orgonates from "sore": "Middle English sory, from Old English sārig, from sār sore" Contrast with "sorrow," "Middle English sorow, from Old English sorg; akin to Old High German sorga sorrow"
Chef's kiss on the ending etymological note.
When someone accuses you of wrongdoing, your options are to admit wrongdoing or deny it.
Saying *only* 'sorry you feel that way' is neither path, it's trying to skate by on confusion between the two meanings of 'sorry' to get out of the situation without accepting either fork.
It's totally fine to say 'sorry you were hurt by this' *in addition to* a defense of your position and declaration that you won't be changing it or taking anything back. In which case, the person may still be mad at you, for the same reason they were mad at you originally which you refused to take back.
There are a variety of jurisdictions that have Apology Acts, which clarify that saying "sorry about this car accident" is not an admission of liability.
This is good, and also stomps all over people insisting "sorry" is an admission of fault socially. If I say I am sorry your grandmother died, I am not admitting to her murder, and anyone who thinks I am is being a dick.
> This is good, and also stomps all over people insisting "sorry" is an admission of fault socially.
Well, if you mean it confirms their opinion...
There would be no purpose to the Apology Act if the expression wouldn't normally be taken as an admission of liability.
It acknowledges that some people take it that way, while legally codifying that it doesn't mean that to everyone. That's hardly saying "it would always mean an expression of fault." If it always meant fault, then there would also be no purpose to the Act.
No, it legally codifies that it doesn't mean that in court. That is a completely separate question from what the phrase means; it is relevant purely to what conclusions a judge may openly draw. It isn't even binding on a jury.
You're right that there is variation in how the phrase is used. But you're completely wrong about this:
> This [...] also stomps all over people insisting "sorry" is an admission of fault socially.
It doesn't and can't do that. Legislation does not affect how people understand things.
It acknowledges that a jury is likely to consider it reasonable to consider such statements to be evidence of guilt or liability, which requires that *most* people take it that way, even when there's someone explicitly pointing out that maybe it wasn't meant that way this time.
This seems a worthwhile time to note that affirmative consent is the law around consent to sex in a criminal context in Canada. Fortunately, the Supreme Court did get around to clarifying that you can consent by conduct (i.e. your actions). They did that some time in the last five years or so. It's been the law since the eighties.
It is not a good thing when you give people a choice between acting legally/morally or effectively, because it makes moral and ethical people ineffective and the immoral and unethical ineffective.
This series of posts has been strange because they seem like they’re missing the cake to talk about the icing. The cake being - actually engage with the others, with your whole being, and hold the tension without breaking contact, surrendering to them, or escalating.
Two people hold strong conflicting, emotionally held beliefs - there is a lot of tension here and that tension could be productive - there could be a real exploration, there could be empathy, there could be personal narrative, there could be vulnerability and connection. It could end up being a powerful moment of transformation for one or both parties, if people can authentically engage.
And if you say “I’m sorry you feel that way” (and end there), it suggests you want to end the tension without any resolution - like you see no potential value to engaging with the other person. That’s disappointing.
Some people aren't worth engaging with, and a non-expletive statement to disengage can sometimes be desirable.
Almost-this. I'd modify it to "some `(person, complaint)` pairs aren't worth engaging with." There exist people (by some measures, most of them) who are worth engaging with *in general*, but not under all circumstances. For example, over the last ten years or so I've found that rather a lot of my friends and family aren't worth engaging with on political subjects. That doesn't make them not worth engaging with the rest of the time.
A large part of the value in having "a non-expletive statement to disengage" lies in cases where the person is worth it even if the interaction isn't. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of good ways to signal "I still care about your preferences even though other factors won out in this particular case." Canned phrases for it, like the one in question, are easy to fake. Easy to fake signals will be faked until they no longer function as a signal, and probably beyond. I don't know the true history of the phrase, but something like that might have happened here.
>Second, we need to figure out some kind of alternative and coordinate to protect it from being slur-cascaded in turn.
Why? What is so important about that hill, other than that you were born on it?
>Third, we need it to be common knowledge not to cooperate in pushing the slur cascade even faster than it would already go.
I don't think this is a slur cascade in the usual sense (latrine -> water closet -> toilet -> bathroom -> restroom...).
I think the issue with "Sorry you feel that way" is not that it has two possible meanings, but that there are people who actively exploit the difference between them. People use it as a fake apology all the time, equivocating between two meanings depending on the reaction ("what more do you want? I already apologised!" or "I didn't say I did anything wrong").
Sentences like "I feel your pain, but I don't regret having said that," or "I apologise for saying that, and won't do it again" might be a bit martian, but they're direct. You can't pretend they have any other meaning.
"Sorry you feel that way" is like "reality is socially constructed" - too easy to exploit by equivocating between its meanings.
I think this search for a different term is a fool's errand. There's no special way of getting the sentiment of "I'm sorry you feel that way" across that's not going to offend someone in much the same way the specific words "I'm sorry you feel that way" do. Someone who feels entitled to a "real apology" is not going to be satisfied with any response that doesn't acknowledge a wrong was committed. It's easy to forget that many of us here value truth over social acceptance much more than the median individual, and what we may take to be intellectual honesty and being precise with our language, others may take to be stubbornness and pedantry. As it's been explained to me by more than one ex-girlfriend, the actual sin is not the language used, but the fact that "you care about being right more than you care about my feelings."
'I'm sorry to hear that' maintains a respectful distance.
Of course being American orientated the commentary on this site doesn’t get the other meaning of “I’m sorry” which in British English can mean “Listen up you slimy piece of shit”, which you also don’t want to be followed by “sir”, which translates to “you plebeian dung pile”.
If you are somewhere posh where you are unwelcome or unticketed then “I’m sorry sir” isn’t the apology you think it is.
There's this weird backwards quality to your examples. It's like the thieve's slang in -- I forget the time and place -- where every word you use means the opposition of what it usually means. An American I know who lived in England for a couple years told me that "I quite like it" does not mean "I like it a lot" -- it's a way of expressing lack of enthusiasm. Is that true?
e.e. cummings rather anticipated the approach to "affirmative consent" that you describe, in a poem whose dialogue is funny and well characterized and not at all Martian: may i feel said he (https://allpoetry.com/may-i-feel-said-he).
scott's original post was bad.
you do not apologize for anyone but yourself. if you caused them to feel sad in a meaningful way, "I'm sorry I raised such a personal subject. I didn't know. Let's not continue on." Or:
"i'm sorry i let my temper get the best of me. please forgive me." Or:
"i'm sorry i did X in the past but this isn't related to what we are talking about now."
But if it is related own it and shut up.
at some point you also need to own the consequences of your belief either way, and sometimes that means offense or feeling bad. you have no obligation to make them
feel better. this is infantilizing them. they are not your kids.
therapy culture is bad because it uses other people's feelings or uses traits/diagnoses to evade their responsibilities or put the burden on other people. if you are "neurodivergent"
YOU have to work harder to deal with things, but a good person understands this as also helps. it does not mean you put up with every little thing they do and its your fault if they annoy you.
I see you got your list out
Say your piece and get out
Yes, I get the gist of it
But it's alright
Sorry that you feel that way
The only thing there is to say
Every silver lining's got a
Touch of grey
Says all that needs to be said here. I have on a couple of occasions in the past 50 years apologised for real - as in, conceded that I have behaved badly and wronged my interlocutor - and much more often, expressed regret that relations between us have got where they have - in effect neither attributing nor accepting blame. This seems a sane and healthy balance to me.
This discussion has given me a sudden flashback to the 1980s, when "sorry" had a phase of popularity as a slang term meaning "pitiful, pathetic, bad."
Of course, this meaning of "sorry" wasn't entirely new—phrases like "a sorry state of affairs" were older—but I think that it had become a semi-obsolete usage, that people generally didn't say except in a few stock phrases. But then somehow young people elevated that usage back to popularity again, saying that something was "sorry" to mean that it sucked. And I remember, the older generation were a bit outraged that we would mess with the language like this.
This too shall pass, I guess.
How about saying "It's unfortunate we don't see eye to eye. I'd really hoped you would come around" while simultaneously feeding your pet crocodiles
OK, I think know what’s wrong with ISYFTW. There are 2 things:
First, you are ignoring the accusation aspect of what the person is saying. In these exchanges the person you’re responding to is expressing a negative emotion (generally frustration, hurt or anger), but they are not expressing *only* an emotion. They are also expressing an opinion, a negative evaluation of something you have done . In Scott’s examples, the speakers are complaining about your having refused to give them money for drugs; objected to a genocidal war that the listener’s relative died in; talking about a subject they believe is a trauma trigger for them. To not acknowledge their complaint but only respond to their emotional distress is rude and inconsiderate. It is intrinsically annoying to have one’s complaint ignored, and to ignore the complaint and address the emotion implies that it’s the emotion that’s important. And think about the situations in which a listener ignores the substantive content of what someone says, and addresses only their evident emotion: parents dealing with overtired children . . . nurses dealing with mental patients . . . people who think the person they're listening to is overwrought. To ignore the content of what they’re upset about is in the same family as “you’re cute when you’re angry” (it’s a less awful member of that family, but still am member.)
Second, to say “I’m sorry you’re feeling that way “is very often not particularly honest. When I accidentally step on one of my cats' tails, and it gives a cry of pain and then retreats from me fearfully I am genuinely sorry that I caused the cat pain, and that now it fears me. Occasionally something happens with another person that's similar: I accidentally do something that distresses them a lot, they speak up about what I've done, and I am heartily sorry that I did it & that I caused them pain. In those situations, I am sorry I did the thing they're objecting to, and I apologize. More commonly, though, when someone complains about something I did, saying that it frustrated them, hurt them, or something along those lines, I am not exactly sorry they are feeling the way they do. Most often I am not focused as much on how they are feeling as on their accusation that I did something I should not have, and in many cases I don’t think their complaint is as valid as they think it is. I myself am feeling hurt or annoyance or frustration about the judgment they are making of me.
So, to take the encounters Scott describes: if a family member accused me of not loving them because I would not give them money for drugs I would be hurt and angry. I would be sad about their addiction and about the loss of the person they used to be, I would be sorry they were suffering from withdrawal, but when they came out with “You don’t love me,” I would be hurt and angry, not sorry they felt that way. (I would certainly be sorry to be stuck in the middle of the awful exchange I was having with them, but that’s a whole different kind of sorry.). The person speaking up about their relative dying in the genocidal war would annoy me a little, but not much — mostly I would be thinking that they needed to pull their minds back from their individual case and see the big picture — but I would also feel some sympathy for their having lost a loved on. I don’t think sympathy for someone’s sadness is the same as feeling sorry they feel that way — it’s more resonating to the way they feel. And the person complaining about being triggered would just make me mad, and I would be sorry that they were at my talk, not sorry they felt triggered.
I doubt that the reactions I’m describing are unusual. When I just observe a stranger feeling frustrated or hurt or angry I do often feel sorry they’re having a bad time, and wonder what just happened to them. But when someone I know accuses me of doing something lousy to them, it’s usually a complicated situation that I don’t see the same way they do. I might react pretty well if they brought up the issue in a calm way, but if they are displaying a lot of indignant upset, my emotions are stirred too, and generally distress at the other person’s distress isn’t the dominant one.
My sister was an addict. “I love you, but I don’t want to fund your drugs.” “I don’t want you to be homeless, but I don’t want to fund a drug house.” This last when we bought the run down house she had been renting after her landlady died. Lest you think I’m foolish and overly generous, buying this place was the cheapest of the available options.
"We'll have to agree to disagree" is not much less passive aggressive than SYFTW, and it will still piss people off because people will always be pissed off by you refusing to back down from disagreeing with them, but it is more endorsed by polite society as a polite way of expressing the sentiment and comes with the bonus effect of a strongly implied "and now we will be switching subjects as further discussion is pointless"
Yeah, and it's dictatorial. Agreeing to disagree has to be a mutual decision. If one person just declines to pursue discussion of your complaint, that's not agreeing to disagree, that's ignoring your complaint.
I kind of actually get triggered by the phrase (don't feel sorry) and the original one wasn't even in English. A similar phrase was just an answer to my accusations that the other party actions harmed me.
They were just expecting me to forgive them without quite saying they're going to act the same way in the same situation. This is because forgiving them is my social obligation. They were sorry I'm not smart/mature enough to understand their actions and the way they were for my own good and be able to control my feelings as to be grateful instead.
I guess it's also a kind of disagreement.
Seems to me that it's not exactly that they are expecting you to forgive them, but simply failing to acknowledge that you have a complaint about them. They are speaking as though all you have done is report that you're experiencing an unpleasant emotion -- as though you had said you still haven't recovered from your dog's death last week. But what you have really done is object to something the other person did (and also make evident the emotion it's causing). It's rude of them to ignore your complaint. And their responding to your emotion without addessing your complaint implies that the real issue is your emotionality -- you're overwrought or oversensitive.
A bit late, so this might not be read, but still:
So you should ask permission for each specific act: “May I put my penis in your vagina?” This 100% solves the problem with no downsides - except that if any man actually did this, the woman would immediately suspect him of being a Martian spy. I’m not happy with the fact that this convenient solution wouldn’t work - just not deluded enough to deny it."
I think this take is just flat-out *wrong*. Of course it sounds weird using clinical language, but no woman ever felt me saying "I really want to be inside you right now, can I go get a condom?" (or something in a similar vein expressing the same sentiment, but doing so verbally instead of non-verbally) was awkward. It did result in a rejection sometimes, but I am very, very happy about those, because I do not know whether the woman would have had sex with me against her will if I hadn't explicitly asked. And when it didn't lead to a rejection, the sex was awesome :-)
Thank you! I feel a bit more sane hearing someone else respond this way too
I feel like what a reasonably good-but-not-afraid defender wants is a two-step process here. You want something to say that reveals to you, the attacker, and the audience that the attacker is or isn't in bad faith. If they are saying you-are-wrong-because-I'm-angry we basically already know, but it helps to show it to everyone else.
You want that opening to sort of semi-vague, reasonable enough that a good actor will at least consider it, but absolutely fucking infuriating to the very bad people who use the bad tactic looking for an easy-cheater's-win in the first place. You also want to weave in some I'm-very-reasonable language to make yourself the adult.
No need to point out that they are the child - they are doing that themselves. You just need to provide a white backdrop for the inky blackness of their shriveled souls.
And one lucky thing here is that the person who is accosting you isn't likely to be a thinker or a good arguer; if they were, they'd be making an argument instead of committing blackmail. Given that, longer word-counts are our friend. We are all of us here neurodivergent, and neurodivergents want "normal people" phrases to use as magic spells to diffuse situations.
You don't get that luxury here. You can't just escape using a one-sentence form letter. You need to have a short conversation, one with planned readied actions on the other side of the door as the aggressor trys to break it down.
So for starters:
1. I'm not trying to upset people, but I'm right about this, and this isn't something I feel comfortable lying about. It would be irresponsible.
Elegant as hell. You aren't in the businesses of upsetting people - but what are you in the business of? The listener connects the dots and finds you are saying that it's telling the truth. And you can't lie about it, which means a couple things; you think it's the truth, you have to keep telling the truth for moral reasons, and your attacker *doesn't*. They are on the side of evil.
They could respond in several ways:
1. Shrieking. You remain calm, and reiterate that the truth is important. You *don't* say "I'm sorry you are UPSET by the TRUTH" and then smirk. That's Reddit-troll level. You don't even say they are asking you to lie. You just say you *can't* lie about it, because it's important, over and over. In your calmest, softest voice, with sympathy in your eyes but sharpened daggers in your heart, until you have every reasonable person in the room. You weren't going to get the rest of the shriekers anyway.
2. Threatening. See above, except now you are willing to take the consequences if that's what it takes, because *the truth is just that important.*
3. Some kind of half-baked counterargument. This is a win. Again, if they had a good argument, they would have used it. And if you have a good argument, which you should if any of this is relevant, you can crush them with it. Remember, this is *your* Ted talk, even if it's family thanksgiving.
4. Coming to a sudden understanding that you are right that things need to be thought about and discussed, and that seeing who can scream the loudest isn't the way to know what's right. (Note: This has never happened. More on that below.)
You never say so, but you act at all times like you are being heckled; like the adult time that was being had is being interrupted. You are calm, to contrast their screaming. You strongly imply that you are a reasonable person with a strong commitment to truth, which is hopefully true. You never apologize, because you need to defend yourself from the bad person.
You simply say you aren't trying to offend anyone, but that you are right and you can't just ignore that, and repeat it forever if you have to. And this gets anyone that it's possible to get. It really does. It's just that it's never going to be the shrieker, because they are a bad person, and it's not going to be the people in the audience who think the shrieker's tactics are OK, because they are bad people too.
And when we reverse engineer the fact that you are dealing with a ton of bad people who think this tactic is OK and not a horribly dishonest anti-social thing babies do, we suddenly get why the phrase you want to use is at hyperstitious slur cascade level 70 already. If you were dealing with someone you could win over in the first place, it wouldn't be. People would hear what you said - that you don't like that the person is upset, but that you aren't actually wrong.
But you are dealing with bad players, immoral know-nothings who want to destroy the very fabric of society. And for them, you need rules:
1. Be slippy. Use a couple sentences, and mix up your phrasing. Imply they are doing something wrong and immoral (they are) and stay very calm. Any apology is limited to your calm, adult tone.
2. Be persistant. If they are willing to yell forever, you are willing to be calm and insist that you can't just lie to make people feel better, as much as you are feeling-good-positive. And you are willing to do it for hours if you need to, in the same calm tone, never condescending, but always as patient as a good parent who knows they can't allow their child to win when the argument is about running with knives.
3. Be subtle and insidious. You never call them bad. You just heavily imply you are good in a way nobody can miss, and create a contrast that most people won't miss. Don't insult the spectators by connecting the dots for them. Let them do it. Feel proud about it. Feel thankful to you for it.
4. Be ready to pull away. When people start telling the knowledge-arsonist to stop screaming, let them. Fall back to a mediator role. Try to protect the idiot, in calm, reasonable ways that also stab their liver and leave them bleeding out on the pavement.
There's a lot of hyperbole here, but the general thrust is something I believe. Anyone who does this, who goes "I'm upset because I disagree!" deserves a corrective backhand. It's not *better* if they don't know better, it's worse. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Destroy their very souls within them if you have to, but don't let them continue on this path uncorrected and unpunished. Make it cost to be bad in this way.
Language is constantly evolving and the point of language is to communicate your thoughts to another person.
If most people can be expected to interpret a word to mean a particular thing in a particular context, they're almost definitionally right.
In this case the word is "sorry" the thing it means is apology, and the context is "sorry that you feel that way".
Maybe we should all go back to speaking Greek, because they have two different words for this. With apologies for not having time to install the keyboard driver so I'm just going to transliterate - Sygnomi means "I'm sorry (and I take responsibility)", as in "I'm sorry for being late, I was engrossed in reading ACX and forgot the time". Lypame means "I'm sorry (I feel sad)" without saying it's your fault, as in "I'm sorry your cat died". Assuming you had nothing to do with the death, of course.
"Unfortunately, they remind me of the mid-2010s debate around “affirmative consent”. The idea was - sometimes women are uncomfortable with sex but too afraid to speak up, so men should directly ask “may I have sex with you?”. Or you could go even further - some women were comfortable with some sex acts but uncomfortable with others, so you should ask permission for each specific act: “May I put my penis in your vagina?”
This 100% solves the problem with no downsides - except that if any man actually did this, the woman would immediately suspect him of being a Martian spy."
I think it's really disingenuous to turn this phrase of asking consent into it's most ridiculous form to get people to agree with you. Of course nobody says "may I put my penis in your vagina", but my model of the world is that people usually do ask permission to do this.
So I guess I want to clarify whether you are trying to say that you actually believe that nobody asks permission for specific sex acts? My model is there is a spectrum, from implicit to explicit, but the real life modal point is something like asking "is this okay?" (Which, imo, is an important thing to ask - perceived enthusiasm for whatever is currently happening surely does not automatically translate into enthusiasm for another thing happening).
Maybe this is irrelevant because maybe the actual point you were trying to make was specifically about a comparison between saying bizarre non-human sounding sentences around sex and consent, and bizarre non-human sentences in this situation? In which case, sure.... As in, sure if you phrase hypothetical things someone might say in an absurd way they will sound absurd. But don't use the hyperbole of this to pretend the middle ground doesn't exist. NVC style communication is a great way to actually own emotions and express accurate statements, I do this often, and it works, and I can say 'I feel really sad about what's happening in this conversation' and it not feel absurd, and I think with some practice any of you could as well.
(If you have a dick and have sex with people with vaginas, please ask if it's okay to do something that has a relatively high probability of being painful ! Although, would be interested to hear anyone's thoughts reading this about what they think here, maybe especially people who are on the receiving end of penetrative sex).
I use "That's too bad" in this spot. Maybe it sounds a little condescending, but so does "I'm sorry you feel that way." There's kind of nothing you can say in this situation that will make the other person feel better, because what they fundamentally want is for you to agree with them and that's not going to happen.
the fundamental issue with ISYFTW is that it's weasely, you're trying to get the benefit of apologizing (them feeling closure by you apologizing) without the downside (admitting you were wrong) and it just obviously comes off that way.
I think a better way to handle a situation like this (someone feels you have wronged them, you disagree) is to decide whether or not you care about their feelings.
if you care about their feelings you can say "I never want to do anything that hurts your feelings. this obviously hurt your feelings so that sucks." This is truthful without forcing you to (dishonestly) admit remorse or imply that you are wrong. you can truthfully acknowledge that while you don't regret the action, the feelings are hurt.
this response tends to confuse the recipient (it's unclear if you are apologizing or not) and tends to lead to one of two actions:;
a. the incorrectly interpret it as contrition, in which case, fine.
b. the recognize that maybe you care about them but you feel like your actions are justified and then they get kind of curious about why and you can have a longer conversation.
How about “it’s okay for us to disagree.” “My condolences for your loss.” “ I care about your feelings.”