I can't wait for Megan's take on this one.

FWIW, I say just suck it up and apologize.

With your fingers crossed, obviously.

Apologizing when you are not obligated to do so may or may not make sense. It's generous, and I've done it when the issue wasn't critical, and when the alternative seemed assholey. Problem is, is that some people will use the leverage of the undeserved apology as a way to squeeze concessions over other things. I don't think there's an all-around solution to that.

As for the original question, 'I'm sorry you feel that way [about it]' works pretty well, since usually you are sorry they feel that way.

max
['BTW, LB, where do you get this 'I'm a bad person' stuff from?']

but they're, you know, actually wrong

Actually wrong? Seems like the way to go. I apologise, although you understand that facts compel me to disregard your so-called 'values'.

It's hard to make any utterance that does not sound to the other person like, "You were wrong to begin with and you are wrong now to not acknowledge it, but I'll deign to continue our association despite my moral and logical superiority since I'm bigger than that." So either what JRoth says in 1 or just avoid.

I seem to remember Fontana having a similar post, or at least a discussion in a thread, about the topic of whether evaluating whether the person claiming injury is being reasonable is the right thing to do. I think he said yes, but there were others (maybe even Di herself) pushing the "you caused the feeling, so apologize for it" or something like that. Can't quite remember.

And, obviously, can't find it at the moment.

'I'm sorry you feel that way [about it]' works pretty well, since usually you are sorry they feel that way.

If by "works pretty well" you mean "is guaranteed to sound smarmy and insincere, and make the addressee livid," then sure.

I generally go with "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings" or something like that. You don't actually need to say "I'm not sorry I did it"...

I had a work situation a few years ago where a jumped-up ass had botched the schedule for a display stall we were doing at a trade fair: we were all doing two-hour shifts with half-hour overlaps, so there was continuity and no one was alone on the stall too long. There were two or three organisations also at the fair I urgently needed to meet with. So I'd told JUA that I had to be on between 2 and 4, because - I needed to see X before 2, needed to see Y and Z soon after 4, etc. So I showed up sharp at 2, JUA was there and never said a word - he was doing a kind of Jumped Up Hover to make sure the stall was running efficiently - I worked hard for 2 hours, and then at 4 when JUA came by again I said, "Right, I'm off now" and JUA said "No, you're on from 2:30 and 4:30." and I looked at the schedule he'd pinned at the back of the stall and sure enough, that was when he'd put me down for.

"But I'll miss seeing Y and X" - "Not my fault, you should have seen them earlier!" - "But I'll have worked 2.5 hours!" - "Not my business, you shouldn't have shown up at 2!"

So I walked. I didn't stop to ask my cow-orker who had just shown up thinking she was going to have a shared half hour with me, I ignored JUA telling me I had to come right back and do the rest of my shift, and I went to talk with X and Y, and fortunately, the deal I made was good enough that JUA must have realized he had better NOT make a big deal with our boss out of my "failing to complete my shift".

My cow-orker was another matter - apparently JUA had just told her "So and so won't do her shift, you'll have to manage on your own" and she felt I should have stopped to explain to her. Which I might have done, if not for JUA being a dork about the schedule.

I wasn't going to apologize for walking off from the stall - I wanted it to be quite clear for future reference that I was sure I'd done the right thing in doing so. I did explain how it had happened, and she said (fairly enough) I should have checked the printed schedule when I started at two. I did apologize for handling it badly - for leaving her alone without a word. For inexplicable reasons, she liked JUA, so I didn't want to trash him to her too hard - I figured the best solution was for us to come back from the trade fair with JUA not talking about my walking off from him and me not talking about his botching up the schedule.

JUA bore every sign of a Pointy-Headed-Boss in training: he had a degree in Business Studies and an ego the size of a planet.

This is going to depend a lot on the sensibility of the offended person, right?

In any case, I would change "I'm sorry you feel that way" to "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to hurt you."

where do you get this 'I'm a bad person' stuff from?

I was nodding to the fact that I couldn't quite manage to draft the post in a way that couldn't be read as "Suppose you're an unrepentant asshole -- what can you do to keep the people you're hurting happy while resisting to the death actually apologizing for anything?" Which, not exactly what I meant to say, but uncomfortably close.

re: 7

I've been in several very similar situations and have done much the same as you.

I did get into that situation when I was at high school, too: helping dismantle the set for a school play. I told the deputy headmaster we had to leave at 10pm as we had to be somewhere else, so that if he wanted to start the stage strip he'd have to get it done by 10 or we'd have to leave with it unfinished. He said that was fine. At 10 pm it wasn't done [it was insane even starting] and when I started to leave he forbade me from leaving. We had words and I left anyway. I think, similar to your situation, it was for the best that he didn't mention that I had told him to fuck off in front of about ten people, and similarly I didn't mention the childish hissy fit he'd shown at my (entirely reasonable) insistence that he honour the commitment he'd already made to let us leave at 10.

"Oh, get over it already, you big baby."

And 8 is pretty good.

I approve of 8.

11: "Get over it yourself, assmunch."

14: Situation resolved!

Seems to me there's a big difference between cases. If somebody has fucked up in good faith, and you've maybe reacted a bit harshly, but they still need to learn the lessons, then apologise for overreacting, but reinforce the issue. If somebody has simply been a cunt and then gets weepy when you call them on it, fuck that it's their problem.

7 and 10 are both good, but not the problem I was thinking of -- they fall more into the "How to deal with a pissed-off jerk without knuckling under too much" category.

14: I say this exact phrase at least once a day.

16: And what I was thinking of is more the situation where you've done or said something that really isn't wrong at all, but someone who you generally care about, or at least want to maintain good relations with, is hurt to the point that they want an apology. Like, if Otto were involved enough with the girl from the earlier thread that he needed to cope with her hurt feelings about his not having acknowledged her birthday, sort of.

It depends on how hard a line you want to take, I think. Usually I find I can at least express regret for a miscommunication ("I didn't mean for this to go this way") even if I'm sticking to my guns on the substance. That's pretty close to 8.

If you're not in a position to admit any error at all, it sometimes works to offer a no-fault do-over, ("Let's forget it ever happened and move on.") or a cooling-off period ("Why don't we take a few days to think about this and then talk about it later.") Those tend to work better when both parties value the relationship involved, of course.

Oops. 18, c'est moi.

17: My cow-orker wasn't a pissed-off jerk - well, she was pissed-off, but under the circumstances, she had a right to be - all she knew was I'd walked off and left her to start her shift on the stall by herself. (JUA of course was not about to spend half an hour behind the stall with her...) But I wasn't going to apologize for what I'd done - I just apologized for how I'd hurt her feelings doing it.

JUA was a pissed-off and pissy jerk, and if I had been required to apologize to him for walking off from him, I would have done what JRoth suggests in 1. Very sincere, fingers crossed, stabbity-stab in back ASAP.

To 19, I think the key is to acknowledge (by describing) the other person's feelings without conceding that they're right.

For example, in hypothetical-Otto's situation (where there's a continuing relationship) something like: "I understand that you are hurt that I didn't wish you a happy birthday. I certainly didn't mean to hurt you. I think you're right that birthday wishes mean different things to the two of us, and I didn't realize how important it was to you. [If true:] In my family, it's not a big deal if one of us forgets another's birthday in any given year."

Of course, for that situation, if there were a continuing relationship, Otto might also be in a position to give a genuine apology and admit that he should have sent a birthday note.

20 seems good to me. Generally, I'm against unfelt apologies. Apologies should express something. If they don't, they're about as meaningful as when people ask you how you are but don't actually want you to respond with how you are. I hate that shit.

19. In that instance, apologise, but try to have a conversation about matching each other's expectations. But I'm strongly drawn to the view that there are never really useful rules of thumb for these sort of social cruces. You deal empirically, and don't beat yourself up.

re: 24

They are also the social glue without which all relationships inevitably fail.

"How are you?" has a perfectly reasonable function. The function is:

"Hi, I am expressing some vague conventional greeting."

there are never really useful rules of thumb for these sort of social cruces

Yes, and the prior terms of the relationship are a good indicator of how best to respond.

You can select in your personal friendships for people who share your values and prejudices ("Don't lie to me, even if it's going to hurt my feelings to hear the truth") but you can't choose your family and you (mostly) can't choose your work colleagues. If the implicit bargain in the relationship is "You're never going to call me on my baloney," then it forces you to do a lot more tiptoeing than you might otherwise.

Also, there's an interesting question about what consititutes "wrong." If a friend feels that his birthday is terribly important and it is a sign of great emotional betrayal to fail to properly observe it, that's his *feeling.* By definition it can't be wrong. He's not entitled to have everyone in the world share his definition of a proper birthday, but he's not wrong.

If, by contrast, he feels that it's terribly important that you cover for him when your joint boss raises suspicions about his fraudulent expense report, that may be his feeling, but it refers to a situation that is empirically wrong.

If he were my friend, the response I'd make in situation #1 might be quite different than #2.

WORDS MEAN SOMETHING, NATARGAM. THE IDEA OF A "SPEECH ACT" "PERFORMING A FUNCTION" IS LUDICROUS CLAPTRAP.

26: Yes, and they do. I'm a lot happier with all my relationships inevitably failing than with meaningless soundmaking.

re: 30

But meaningless sound making is what we qua hairless apes do. There's nothing principled about failing to engage in it.

THAT WHEREOF WE CANNOT SQUEAK, WE MICE BE SILENT.

I feel as if, after 6 years of living LB's hypothetical with BOGF, I should have a technique down pat. How about:

Stick to your guns until the other party gives you so much grief and misery that you really, truly are sorry for whatever it was that the other party thinks (wrongly) you should/shouldn't have done; then you are in a position to deliver an utterly heartfelt apology ("I'm so, so very sorry you're such a horrible person; years hence, I'll be telling stories about you to strangers on the internet").

Finally, an explanation of how AWB only ends up in relationships with sociopaths and people with severe emotional problems.

31: I'm not saying I'm a good person or something; I just can't do it. I tend to surround myself with other people who don't do it, if I can. I know it makes me bad company for some other people.

31: Grunt, snort, howl.

34: That must have felt good to say.

PSEUD SLIP! FML!

31: I have no words.

re: 35

Everyone does it. Those who don't tend to lean towards the emo/Randian end of the 'normal person' 'utter cock' scale. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but that does tend to be how it goes.

37 -> 36

Bah. Forgot to use proper html.

'normal person' < ---------- > 'utter cock'

40: You may be looking at a weird subset of people who use "earnestness" as an excuse to be assholes. Some people aren't assholes. Bave is like this, actually. He really only speaks when he has something he wants to say, and it happens that a lot of what Bave wants to say is really interesting and thoughtful. I admire this about Bave.

re: 43

No, what I mean is that everyone uses phatic communication as part of the cementing of ordinary social bonds and the smoothing over of the cracks and bumps in order daily interactions. People who don't are usually cocks.

That's completely orthogonal to whether people are sincere or interesting or thoughtful on the one hand, or given to endless annoying repetition on the other.

Also, I'm not sure what kind of scale goes from "normal person" to "utter cock." There are also abnormal people who are wonderful, kind, generous, caring, and so forth.

re: 45

And I didn't mean to imply that there aren't, as you fine well know.

44: You don't say.

OT note on cross-cultural profanity:

"Cock", as an insult rather than as an anatomical word, is far enough outside of my dialect that I have a hard time not reading it as 'male chicken'. Is that just me? 'Dick' is an insult, 'cock' is what you use if you're actually talking about a penis.

re: 48

It's just a slight difference of emphasis.

Or a douche.

44: Yeah, we've had this conversation before. I'm really, seriously, not around small-talkers much. The time I get with people I care about is precious. It's not like every conversation has to be serious or super-intimate, but honestly, I'm just not around anyone who small-talks as a habit. We laugh or talk about things we've talked about before, but it's completely sincere.

But I guess I share your bias in that I tend to think of people who small-talk as "nice"; we just don't get along very well.

On an emotional level, I sympathise with AWB here (maybe she should move to Finland); but although you can choose your friends to fit in with your preferred mode of interaction, there are planty of occasions, especially at work, where you basically have to grunt in the right places - it's part of what you're paid to do.

I don't quite understand why ttaM is so exercised about this.

re: 51

Yeah. I think I just disagree about the value of small talk and the consequences of failing to do it, and, perhaps more importantly, the problems with being someone who actively self-identifies as someone who doesn't do small-talk.

But it's probably not a productive topic for discussion since both points of view are fairly entrenched and the potential for ending up casting aspersions is high!

52: It was one of those things that made office life hell for me. As a teacher, I don't have to do it ever. Whee! Well, at stupid development seminars and stuff I sometimes do. It hurts me.

For what it's worth, it's probably all about degrees. I can't be bothered with people who are all small talk, either. It's not a productive mode of interaction, but that isn't really its purpose either. It's just ape-like grooming.

I think there's also got to be a disconnect happening on levels of literalism -- I figure AWB's friends probably do engage in a certain amount of meaningless-grunt level speech, along the "How are things?" and "Man, raining again" level, because it'd be really hard to get through the day with literally none of that. I'd guess that AWB is truthfully reporting that the people she hangs out with engage in much less phatic communication then most, and ttaM's getting persnickety in that philosopher-esque kind of way about how you shouldn't characterize 'much less then average' as 'none'.

56 crossed with enough comments that it's basically pwned.

Isn't phatic communication even smaller than small talk? I think of small talk as a five minute conversation about the weather, and phatic communication as the guy who passes me in the hall and says "Hey, man what's up" and doesn't even wait for an answer.

So, working hard or hardly working?

re: 56

Yes, that's probably not wrong.

55: Grooming makes me anxious, too.

That's what this is about, really. It's not like I sit around rolling my eyes at people I see greeting each other with "How are you?" (The fools! Little do they know...) It really just makes me very anxious. My parents weren't small-talkers when I was little, and they still have a lot of social problems now because of it. My dad is very much the "I don't have anything to say so I keep my mouth shut" type, and my mom is always saying exactly what's really on her mind. Neither of them have any friends, despite being pretty fucking charming. I feel very lucky to be around people who indulge me in this way.

59: It is what it is.

"Hey, man what's up" and doesn't even wait for an answer.

I don't have a serious objection to phatic communication, but I'm really bad at it -- I've never been able to internalize that 'How are you' is in the form of a question, even if the speaker isn't interested, so you're supposed to answer it, and have an annoying habit that I can't break myself of, of automatically responding 'How are you' rather than 'Fine,' which is non-responsive. Life is tough when you're terminally confused.

along the "How are things?" and "Man, raining again" level

Oh sure, I say these things, but what I really mean when I say them is "How are things?" or "Man, raining again." Both of those turn into conversations about, like, things, or the effects of a month of rain on one's ability to live well. It's not all deep shit all the time. But it's not the "How are you?" that does not need an answer because it doesn't really want to know.

maybe she should move to Finland

Someone was once explaining to me that in Iceland, it's common for people to gather and drink in silence. The silence is occasionally punctuated by someone saying "ya ya", to which someone else will respond "yoi yoi". People nod and resume drinking. The words don't mean anything; it's just a way of somehow acknowledging other people without actually talking. I can't figure out a spelling of these words that I can Google for independent confirmation.

47, 59, and 62 actually make my heart race a little.

63: The proper sayings/responses *can* be a bit shibbolethy, catching out the nerd who actually tries to answer, so "Ha-ha, what a fucking nerd" reinforced for the nth time that day.

Not that I'm bitter.

It's just ape-like grooming.

There's nothing like spending a week where you're spending an hour each day literally going through your kids' hair with a nit-comb while you chat about stuff to make you feel like a big hairless monkey.

an annoying habit that I can't break myself of, of automatically responding 'How are you' rather than 'Fine,' which is non-responsive.

Somebody once told me that this is in fact the correct usage: the phrase has evolved from the original enquiry to mean something like, "I am not going to interact with you at the moment, but I am rehearsing our right to interact non-aggressively in the future." and the appropriate response is to echo it.

Man, raining again

Although quite descriptive here this morning after a very anomalous weather week for early July. A very seasonally atypical cold air low over the eastern Great Lakes has nailed a lot of the northeast. Have never seen one this persistent this late in the year. Al Gore is fat!

I just realized that for some people "Looking good, hot stuff!" is phatic communication.

58 is right; small talk on the "rain in spain" model is much higher-level than the sort of usually very semantically bleached things people say phatically. "What's up?" "Not much" isn't small talk.

Someone was once explaining to me that in Iceland, it's common for people to gather and drink in silence.

You see, these are people of whom the Larousse's claim that "family and social life also offer numerous other occasions to consume drinks for pleasure" really does capture the right dependence.

69: if someone echoed "how are you?" back to me after I asked "how are you?" I would, bitchily/nerdily, remark that I had asked first.

72: usually very semantically bleached things

Nice day for a white wedding.

Shit, I think I'd like to visit Finland. I have noticed that sometimes in fairly intimate moments when I've shared something important, a shared active silence can be much more respectful and helpful than awkward communication. I think if those moments as sort of sacred, and I want to protect them.

"rain in Spain" is small talk?

I like the phrase "semantically bleached"

Small talk is still talk *about* something, just something stupid and boring. Phatic communication isn't even about anything.

74: Which would restore my sense of having behaved, if not with perfect social aplomb/appropriateness, at least with as much as the other participant in the conversation. Very decent of you.

In Spain it is.

78: Phatic communication isn't even about anything.

Wait 'til you see the scripts for Seinfeld: The Next Generation.

79: no, see, I would do it very charmingly, actually. You would be charmed. Beguiled. You would certainly answer the question with sincerity and a blush.

Semantic bleaching is a well-attested phenomenon.

Last time I worked in an office was also the biggest office I've worked in - 14 to 8 people (the business was in the process of failing - not my fault, I swear!), none of whom would naturally have been friends of mine. Most of them were capable of saying interesting things, but there was definitely a lot more phatic talk than I was really comfortable with*. Furthermore, I'm not very good at small talk, in that I have trouble keeping it small - unless there's a time constraint, I tend to yatter on about last night's dinner, or the Pirates game, or whatever - legit small talk topics, but entirely too engaged.

I suspect that I do this here as well.

* The one guy I ended up becoming pretty friendly with was very adept at phatic talk, which put me off, but when we were just one-on-one, we interacted in a way that was quite comfortable for me. I think he is naturally less gregarious than I am, so he made a conscious effort at the phatic/small talk stuff.

I'm pretty much with Bear on this, though I think ttaM has a point. I don't ask "How are you?" unless I actually care how the person is, and I'm bothered by people asking that question when they obviously aren't interested in the answer. "Hello" works just fine and doesn't have the ambiguity of being both an actual question and a meaningless greeting.

These empty grunt greetings and small talk serve a really important purpose, but there's ways to do them that don't involve saying one thing and meaning something completely different. It's all the more important in small talk with strangers to avoid doing that because you can't be sure that the stranger shares your assumptions about which sentences mean what they say and which ones mean something completely different. This has caused me a considerable amount of distress in the past as I find that I've accidentally committed a horrible faux pas by telling someone how I am when they bloody well asked me, for example.

Geez. If I say, 'What's up?' to someone and they ...shock horror... tell me what's up, that's like fine. If someone says 'What's up?' to me, and I give them 30 words on the subject and they get pissed off, then that's rude. They should have said, 'Hello!', maybe even in that goofy Python-style psuedo-Leapy Lee voice.

On the other hand, AWB, your description of yourself makes it sound like you're being kind of self-defeating.

max
['But that's another topic.']

"You were wrong to begin with and you are wrong now to not acknowledge it, but I'll deign to continue our association despite my moral and logical superiority since I'm bigger than that."

This and variants of it actually work. They'll either laugh or you find out you don't want them in your life anyway.

83: An interesting sentence noted without comment from the website of The Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages at the Ohio State Department of Linguistics, The expressive capacity of the language is gradually lost, because content words loose its meaning to become function words and serve syntactic functions.

Interesting site, otherwise. For instance, "lexical emptying".

I wonder if there's any relationship to babytalk during language acquisition. Some people feel it's important to talk to toddlers with small, meaningless questions that have no potential for a meaningful response. Others talk to toddlers as if they're interested in eliciting a non-programmatic response. My parents did the latter, but I can see why it's ultimately not productive for creating the kind of people who can do smalltalk.

88: Interesting that everything is so interesting.

There was a list, online or in a magazine, of smart-assed remarks that old Irish people would give to some traditional Que paso-type greeting that was particular to Ireland. But I've forgotten what the greeting was and where I saw the list. Believe me though, it was funny.

I wish I had a list like that of responses to "what's up?" and "how are you?". Then I'd show you all!

86: I dunno. I'm a pretty happy person. I have a lot of friends. I'm not half as worried about me as people here are.

I can see why it's ultimately not productive for creating the kind of people who can do smalltalk.

No, you can't. You can wonder whether it's ultimately not productive.

Words mean things!

68: Lizardbreath is bald!

94: Also, not actually a lizard.

On the OP, 28 really gets it right: the Otto's non-girlfriend scenario is a case of situation #1, in which it can't really be said that her views about birthday greetings are objectively wrong.

It might be worth saying that any given relationship is an ongoing process of learning, and teaching, one another the behaviors that each party deems appropriate, hence teaching/learning each other's values and meanings (cue Cavell). This happens even on a very mundane level.*

If you've erred in understanding how important birthday greetings are to someone, and they let you know that, you can acknowledge their hurt, express your regret, and make a mental note not to miss the birthday greeting next time. It's just part of the rules for this person. (Or, of course, if you think this rule on their part is ridiculous, you pass on 'learning' it, and the relationship may falter.)

* I dated a guy for a while who opened every telephone conversation with "Hey, what's up?" (no introduction, no "it's me", just my "Hello?" followed by his "Hey, what's up?"). He expected no particular reply, but it annoyed me such that I sometimes answered "Well, I was doing yoga," sometimes "Nothing's up," and eventually one time, after a long pause, "Why are you asking me that, why are you calling?" Oops.

89 is an interesting speculation. Apparently the phenomenon of "Motherese" (official designation) - the kind of sing-song slow meaningless talk that people do with babies is pretty much universal in all cultures. But do all cultures do small talk?

89 My parents did the latter
Mine too. It warped me. Also the constant recourse to the dictionary for etymologies. It's a wonder I'm not more like nosflow.

Did anyone else's parents (mothers in particular) construct long narratives from the POV of a younger, pre-verbal sibling? My mother had a great series where my youngest sister would regale us (through a high-pitched, chirpy voice provided by my mother) about "the Babies' Club" where she (my sister) would fly out the window every night to go to a posh club for babies where they would smoke cigars and plan their next adventures. It was one of the funniest parts of my childhood.

There is at least one culture where people don't really speak to children until they begin talking back. They are quite famous in language acquisition literature.*

* someone will probably pwn me now by pointing out that the research on the Nobabytalkians was refuted at some point in the past ten years.

Oh wow, 96 is pwned up there. I'm so glad we're on the same page, people!

98 is adooooorable. And no, my mom didn't do this. I didn't have any younger siblings though. I guess we all did it with my childhood dog, taking turns speaking for him during dinner or whatever.

97: Is "Motherese" with an infant really the same thing as talking to a toddler, though? I have a much higher tolerance for silly nonsense phrases and endearments to an infant who not only can't talk back, but is at the earliest stage of receptive language, than I do for a toddler.

It's entirely appropriate, even preferred, to ask a toddler meaningful questions, even if her expressive language isn't quite up to answering them in spoken English. In fact, I'm having a bit of a dilemma at present because a couple I'm friendly with talks to their toddler in ways that just about drive me up a wall, and it's making it hard to spend time with them.

Did anyone else's parents (mothers in particular) construct long narratives from the POV of a younger, pre-verbal sibling?

I do this with dogs. They all speak in falsetto and have a very cynical take on the world.

someone will probably pwn me now by pointing out that the research on the Nobabytalkians was refuted at some point in the past ten years.

No, but AFAICR there's a correlation between Nobabytalkianism and societies which have been severely traumatised in fairly recent history. I have no idea if it's properly significant.

96.last confuses me. If there's ever a situation where it's appropriate to ask "what's up" it'd be the beginning of a conversation you intend to continue. Passing briskly in the hall I could see it being annoying, but usually when I call someone finding out what's up is at least part of the reason.

I did have a friend in grad school who always responded to "What's up?" with "When the angle between the horizon and the direction of interest is between zero and 180 degrees."

I tend to give very bleak responses to the question "How are you doing?" without really thinking about it. There's a lot of "[sigh] hanging in there." or "Things could be worse I suppose." The thing is, I say these things automatically, and they really are supposed to be phatic responses.

I guess I must appear to the office staff as a cloud of misery and despair. Although, it isn't as bad as it was in grad school.

102: I think there's a big difference. At the infant stage, you're trying to elicit imitated sounds, not have a conversation. With toddlers, the continuation of that mode of conversation is really bizarre and upsetting to me. Bave and I were in the park recently and overheard a mom talking to her two-year-old like, "TREEEEEEEEEEEEE! FLOOOOOWERRRRRR!" and I instantly yearned for a tubal ligation.

Did anyone else's parents (mothers in particular) construct long narratives from the POV of a younger, pre-verbal sibling?

My whole family ventriloquizes for pets and babies (well, really for any non-verbal animals; when we had mice, there was a lot of commentary from the mice. They say 'Dude' a lot, and complain about the quality of the crumbs on the floor.) We do it enough that I occasionally forget that it's too silly to do in public, and confuse other people walking their dogs: "No, that was said in a high-pitched nasal voice, and was therefore obviously intended to represent the inner monologue of your dog as she warned mine away from trying to fetch her ball". Those conversations tend to end badly.

106. Moi aussi. My standard response has become "Could be worse, I'll think how in a minute". I'm not sure why. I'm not particularly miserable, and I made no conscious effort to start saying it.

re: 104

Actually, looking at the wiki article on child language acquisition it seems that recent research suggests that the fairly intensive speech directed at babies in the West may not be the norm. So, the Nobabytalkian model is quite common, to varying degrees.

And the culture I remember reading about weren't, iirc, one that had particularly been subject to trauma. Children were cared for, but they just weren't spoken to directly much.

107: Part of that may be frustration -- a lot of toddlers go through a fairly long period where you know they're awake in there, in that they clearly understand speech and want to communication, but can't talk yet. That sounds like it might have been someone thinking "Tree! Tree! Just goddamn it say Tree!"

109: A conventional Samoan response to "How are you" (which isn't the standard greeting question, it's more of a genuine social inquiry) is "Tatala le fetu", which means "My heart's still beating." Idiomatically, "Not dead yet." I loved that, and said it all the time.

When it seems obvious that someone is just asking how I am or what's up as a greeting, and not actually attempting to elicit a narrative of recent events, I tend to just shrug slightly, smile, and jostle my head. It frees me from feeling like I'm abusing the social convention without risking the absurdity of responding to "How are you?" with "How are you?"

108: My ex used to do this all the time. He knew all the dogs in our part of Brooklyn because he had voices for each of them, but he seriously couldn't remember any of their owners or their names. The dogs' names, however, he had down. I'm sure it was unnerving for their owners, but the dogs seemed to like him.

110. I can't really comment, because I can't remember where I saw this stuff. But there is certainly an opposing PoV. I suspect the jury remains out, as in so much of linguistics.

And I'm entirely on board with talking to children who have some language skills as one would wish to be talked to oneself. It seems rude to do otherwise. OTOH, I've come across kids who were totally discombobulated when I did, because nobody had ever talked to them that way before.

108: We do that too. I like to think of it as providing a voice for the voiceless. You are helping the mice speak truth to power, in this case, the truth about the quality of the food on the floor.

and want to communication,

Myself, I often want to communication, but with frequency failure occurrence.

I think the talking baby thing was probably an outgrowth of the cat's commentaries. The cat didn't really have a narrative arc though, just random thoughts.

You know what I like about Unfogged? There's very little phatic text. Other disco boards, you get all this phatic nonsense, the kind of stuff that "Kobe!" satirizes. It's annoying to me, as someone who has a very low tolerance for phatic speech IRL. Sometimes I forget myself, and lapse into a phatic greeting ritual. People who know me are generally so shocked that they don't know how to respond.

This morning, walking to work, a middle-aged African-American man whom I had never met before stopped me on the street to consult me on whether I thought it odd that so many businesses were closed today. Not so much as a "by your leave", neither. It was refreshing and kinda fun. He abjured any phatic speech, and just launched into this narrative about how perplexed he had been to see everything closed. I replied "Well, the economy probably has something to do with it," and he was overjoyed. "Thank you for saying that!" he said, "That's just what I thought, it must be this economic downturn that has them saying 'might as well not open, then I don't have to pay my employees.'" It was a diverting interlude.

105: 96.last confuses me. If there's ever a situation where it's appropriate to ask "what's up" it'd be the beginning of a conversation you intend to continue. Passing briskly in the hall I could see it being annoying, but usually when I call someone finding out what's up is at least part of the reason.

It was annoying only because he didn't particularly want to know what was up; it wasn't a measured "Hi, person, what's up with you?" -- and wait for an answer -- but rather a longer version of simply "Hi!" He'd often reply to my answer with "So anyway ..." and launch into the reason for his call. I don't bear a grudge about this, just saying that he was stubborn about seeing that while that meaningless greeting worked for him and his friends, it came across as a bullhorn for me.

An interesting sentence noted without comment from the website of The Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages at the Ohio State Department of Linguistics, The expressive capacity of the language is gradually lost, because content words loose its meaning to become function words and serve syntactic functions.

Distressing misspelling aside, this isn't the best way to characterize grammaticalization (which is what's being described here). Yes, semantic bleaching is part of what happens when content words become function words or bound morphemes -- but that doesn't mean that expressive capacity is being lost. First of all, an affix marking aspect (for example) isn't less "expressive" than a noun or adverb. Also, what gets grammaticalized is a phonological string (which typically undergoes some phonological reduction too) in a given context, so that the original word or words can often also survive as content words in other contexts. So, for example, the emergence of the English auxiliary going to/gonna, which expresses immediate futurity, didn't mean that the main verb go disappeared.

Mine too. It warped me. Also the constant recourse to the dictionary for etymologies. It's a wonder I'm not more like nosflow.

My father would frequently use words he had excellent reason to believe I wouldn't know, and when I asked him what they meant, he would tell me to look them up.

I persisted in asking long after I knew what the answer would be, of course.

106: as do I.

Togolosh, you grew up iirc around Tswana people, so you know how important extended greeting are. In West Africa, you can spend five minutes explaining how you and everyone in your family is fine, before getting to the part of the conversation where you actually get to explain that your family is not in fact doing that well.

I think the weirdness in our society is not just that phrases that in some circumstances are actual inquires can be turned into greetings, but that the greeting substitute for the conversation that would normally follow. Part of this is because we all see eachother a lot more than we would have in the past and it would, on the one hand, be exhausting if we had to have a full conversation everytime we passed each other in the hall and, on the other, isolating and anomie-tastic if we ignored eachother completely.

the English auxiliary going to/gonna, which expresses immediate futurity,

Someday, rfts, I'm going to prove you wrong.

Other disco boards, you get all this phatic nonsense, the kind of stuff that "Kobe!" satirizes.

You know, I usually want to push back when people talk about how great Unfogged is compared to other fora, but on this front I love us a lot. I don't have anything against content-free grunting in person, but in written form I can't take it at all.

115: But I want to understanding of LB, and successful mostly achieved.

Apparently the phenomenon of "Motherese" (official designation)

"Child-directed speech" is available as a gender-neutral alternative.

Not all speech directed to children is child-directed speech, then.

Someday, rfts, I'm going to prove you wrong.

Which centrally expresses immediate futurity, then! I'm going to tread firmly on your foot.

123 makes me think of a cute email I got recently from an ESL student asking for the opportunity to revise an assignment: "I think my paper is sucks." I've been saying this for a week now. This is sucks.

122, 123: Forget I said anything.

I've been trying to communicate with people who spend way too much time watching Fox news and listening to AM radio. My current theory is that statements such as "the economic crisis was caused by the Community Reinvestment Act" are not actually about the causes of the economic crisis. Rather, they are more like conventional greetings - or religious call and response routines - meant to simply identify one as a group member.

I am accustomed to communication being related to the semantic content of the words, so I often mistakenly respond "what evidence do you have to support that belief?" This is as confusing as responding "synecdoche" whaen someone greets you with "how are you?"

In other words, when certain groups aver that words have meaning, what they are really indicating indicating is that words don't have meaning, they are symbols of affiliation.

or not.

91 has really put me in my place.

Another annoying thing about phatic speech: If there's one context that should be free of phatic speech, it's the doctor's office! I've had the same nurse for a couple of years now, and every time she comes to get me from the waiting room, she's all "How are you today?" Well, guess what, I'm here in the middle of a weekday at the doctor's office, might we not then surmise that I am not. Doing. So. Well.? Errrrrrrr.

Re: other languages
I've always liked the Russian greeting Kak tiy pazheevaiesh? which I internally translate as "How y'all livin'?"
Apparently you have to watch out with the phatic speech in Russia though, as those damnably morose Russians will often go off into a ponderous litany of complaint at the slightest phatic provocation. Or so I've been told.

Michael Dummett, if I recall the citation of him in "Naïve Action Theory" right, says that "going to" expresses a present tendency directed to the future (aren't all tendencies? let me check that) … no, it's "future expressing present tendencies".

I don't see how "someday I'm going to ..." "centrally" expresses immediate futurity, or how the similar "in ten years I'm going to … (e.g. be 37)" does either.

130: What?

I do this with dogs. They all speak in falsetto and have a very cynical take on the world.

OMG, yes. When we got our current dog, I tried to come up with a new voice, out of respect for our previous, deceased dog, but I can't actually do voices, so falsetto it was. I also kind of foisted the previous dog's "personality" (which had developed naturally out of her real personality) upon the new dog, but the new dog has enough character to have forced me into modifications.

I don't know if that made any sense. But our dogs' imagined speech is a big part of our family conversation (Iris will even converse with him).

We do this to some extent with Kai, but using a straight voice and a pretty deadpan personality ("I don't know if you've ever had mashed potatoes, Dad, but they're really good.").

A more maintainable claim, I think, would be that "going to" expresses an intention which one currently has, or a prediction based on something currently going on in one, but if "immediate" in "immediate futurity" has a temporal meaning, then I say: bosh!

Or, for that matter, records an intention someone else has, or is a prediction based on something currently going on elsewhere. ("It's going to fall" eg does not say that it will fall in the immediate future.)

etymologies

This reminds me: can any of you lawyer types explain the origin of the legal term "colorable"? No reason, I'm just curious. Its meaning - if I understand correctly - doesn't seem to correspond to any folk etymologizing I can manage.

"future expressing present tendencies"

No, you're right. That's good. I get "immediate futurity" from the standard Hopper and Traugott grammaticalization account, I think. I don't know, and am at the moment too lazy to look up, whether they were making a historical claim that auxiliary going to was first used to express immediate futurity, or just getting the semantics wrong.

Ha ha, which means that I shouldn't have said "prediction" but rather records the normal upshot of something currently going on elsewhere without the implication that this upshot is one which would normally happen soon.

117: I see. That makes sense.

My best ever response to "How are you doing?" from someone who clearly didn't give a shit was when I went to buy a cup of coffee right after the Big Talk with my then-wife (drinking coffee is a reflexive response to stress for me). The guy behind the counter asked and I (still shell-shocked) responded with "My wife just left me. I want coffee."

Also 120.1 is spot-on. Part of my frustration with words and phrases not meaning what they mean comes from dealing with exactly those situations: Extended discussion in which factual statements are made which are flatly false but are not considered lies, while the actual semantic content is tacked on at the end of the conversation in a sort of by-the-way fashion. It works great at the pace of village life, but it's completely dysfunctional at the pace of modern city life.

I tried to come up with a new voice, out of respect for our previous, deceased dog, but I can't actually do voices, so falsetto it was.

My dad was the primary source of the voices when I was a kid. When my sister went away to college, she came back on one vacation furious with him: "I was telling my friends about how you did all these great voices for different animals, and how funny they were. And you know what I figured out? You weren't doing different voices at all! THEY WERE ALL THE SAME VOICE, DAD! THEY WERE ALL THE SAME VOICE!" She was really quite exercised about it.

whether they were making a historical claim that auxiliary going to was first used to express immediate futurity, or just getting the semantics wrong

Or have some more abstract notion of proximality in mind.

||
OT: Because NBC are a bunch of dickwads, Roddick v. Murray is being shown now on delay over here, so please to not report any results. (Don't Know why I thought anyone would.)

I regard this as a moral test analogous to putting a Band-Aid on the arm where you just got the shot.
|>

JRoth: directly from the Latin.

137: No idea at all. It's a very subtle word -- the meaning, at least in my dialect of lawyer, identifies an argument that's probably wrong, or at least that you personally don't buy, but that's good enough to make without embarrassment. And I can't get from there to 'color' by any route I can think of.

the fairly intensive speech directed at babies in the West may not be the norm

Which is so strange, because I do it for my own sanity. It comes up less with Kai, but with Iris I was constantly narrating what I was doing. Obviously I didn't think that, at 4 months, she was learning anything about the bathing and dressing of a baby, or the mixing of pancake batter, but the idea of being around another human with nothing but oppressive silence was just too much (another adult who's reading or something, sure).

But Westerners, and esp. Americans, are probably a lot chattier than a lot of other cultures.

144: If that means you actually understand it, elucidate?

The OED's entries on "colorable" and "color" are worth looking at here, but too long for me conveniently to copy and, alas, my sneaky backdoor has long since been shut down.

Also, they do not fit in this margin.

131: You might just be in for your annual physical or to go over some tests or something. They do this in the psychiatry department, and they might actually care when they see somebody once a month or so.

LB: am using the slow-as-molasses Perseus Project to access A Latin Dictionary even now.

isolating and anomie-tastic

hover text

And I can't get from there to 'color' by any route I can think of.

Oh, I can get there: "It is possible at least to add artistic verisimilitude to this otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, whereas with some of the other options we couldn't even do that." But I doubt if it's the right way there.

color of title, color of law, and color of office seem similar, and (to me) suggest color in the sense of flag (e.g. they were flying pirate colors). Sorta like aegis.

Thanks you for consulting Just Folks for all your etymological needs.

151. Do you want me to go and get Lewis and Short? What would I be looking for, exactly?

154: Oooooh. That does work for me -- an argument seaworthy enough to 'fly your colors', rather than one that's just going to sink at the dock. Or something like that.

133: Just playing with "I'd show you!"

It worked better in my head immediately after I finished reading 91, true.

Oh man. We've never had our non-verbal family members talk to us but that's completely fantastic and I'm jealous. It might be a dangerous trend for our family because I could see it extending to vehicles and plants.

I don't have any special apology techniques for when I'm not sorry for my actions. "Sorry you caught the fallout from that." "Oh no, that isn't how I thought that would happen." I'm not especially patient with sensitive people, so I wouldn't be surprised if my usual behavior means screens them out. This is a good outcome for both of us.

THEY WERE ALL THE SAME VOICE, DAD! THEY WERE ALL THE SAME VOICE!

But it was a tribute to the characterization created by the text (if you will) that she had never noticed it at the time.

or something one can run up the flagpole and salute, without everyone dying of shame.

146: But Westerners, and esp. Americans, are probably a lot chattier than a lot of other cultures.

Isn't this sort of thing related to the 'middle class parenting' style that's supposed to encourage school readiness? I'm thinking, without remembering anything specific enough to link to, about the sort of research underlying Geoffrey Canada's Harlem's Childrens' Zone project -- that middle class kids come into school having heard a lot more speech directed at them than poorer kids, and that difference turns into a real difference in academic achievement.

Thanks you for consulting Just Folks for all your etymological needs.

I like this a lot.

Sincerely. I'm not just being phatic. It's true.

There's a great story from a memoir of someone who was flying back to the U.S. from a funeral in London following a sudden death. She just broke down, after a week of holding things in, when the gate attendant said, "Business or Pleasure?" The gate attendant did care enough to upgrade her to first class.

Here's def'n IIA for "color" in ALD:

A. In gen., color, i.e. external form, state, condition, position, outward show, appearance (predominant in rhet.; v. 2.; elsewh. rare, and mostly poet.): "amisimus omnem non modo sucum ac sanguinem, sed etiam colorem et speciem pristinam civitatis," Cic. Att. 4, 16, 10: "vitae," Hor. S. 2, 1, 60; cf.: omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res, every color became him, i. e. he accommodated himself to every condition, id. Ep. 1, 17, 23: novimus quosdam, qui multis apud philosophum annis persederint, et ne colorem quidem duxerint, have not acquired even the outward appearance, i.e. have imbibed or learned nothing, Sen. Ep. 108, 5

And IIB1 & 2:

Pregn. (cf. supra, 1. B. 2.), a beautiful, brilliant quality or nature, splendor, lustre, brilliancy (freq. only in rhet. lang.)

2. Of diction.
a. A high, lively coloring, embellishment: "intelleges nihil illius (Catonis) lineamentis nisi eorum pigmentorum quae inventa nondum erant, florem et colorem defuisse," Cic. Brut. 87, 298; id. de Or. 3, 25, 100; id. Q. Fr. 2, 13 (15 a), 2.--
b. In a bad sense, t. t., an artful concealment of a fault, a pretext, palliation, excuse,

The verb "coloro" can mean "(In a bad sense.) To give a coloring, to gloss over, palliate".

So "color" in this sense doesn't just mean red, green, blue, etc.; and something is given color if it's given an outward appearance which it might really lack. "Colorable" in fact formerly, evidently, had the strictly pejorative meaning of "specious", giving false show, or outright counterfeit (OED def'ns 2a & c), but you can see how from this starting point you could also reach the more neutral meaning of "having at least a prima facie aspect of justice or validity" (OED def 2b).

Interestingly, none of the OED's def'ns for "colorable" has anything to do with color in the rgb sense!

I'll buy 154. Definitely no Latin derivation. Only cite for colorabilis is as a synonym for chromaticus in Martianus Capella.

158: I once briefly went out with a guy who talked to objects. He used his regular voice, and addressed them, usually with some kind of small-talk question or greeting. I think it was a way of dealing with awkward silences. It was pretty effective!

Oh man. We've never had our non-verbal family members talk to us but that's completely fantastic and I'm jealous.

When you bike to Pittsburgh, Megan, Jasper will greet you emphatically, I promise.

Completely OT, but redfoxtailshrub if you're still reading this is there a chance you could email me at the linked email? I wanted to ask about your food blog, which I used to love reading (and there are some recipes that I would love to get from you if you still have them lying around and any excess time to do a favor for an imaginary person) but I didn't know the best way to contact you! Thanks.

"Colorable" in fact formerly, evidently, had the strictly pejorative meaning of "specious", giving false show, or outright counterfeit (OED def'ns 2a & c), but you can see how from this starting point you could also reach the more neutral meaning of "having at least a prima facie aspect of justice or validity" (OED def 2b).

That's fascinating, because I understand it as pejorative, but had assumed that it was pejorative only because of its weakness. Like, say, 'defensible' -- 'defensible' doesn't mean false, but you wouldn't say it about something that was self-evidently true. But this looks as though it's always meant what it means now: plausible bullshit.

I'll buy 154. Definitely no Latin derivation

Wrong again, my English friend!

Pwned by 164. Didn't look far enough. But I was right about "artistic verisimilitude".

I was strengthened in my latin-looking resolve by the OED's helpful "OF. colorable corresp. to L. type *colorabil-is, f. colorare to COLOUR: see -ABLE."

161: I know he talked about that in the TAL episode in which he was featured. It seems pretty clear that by the time kids get to school, it's already sort of too late. You learn how to think and talk when you're very very small.

Obviously if I ever leave academe I'll have to allocate $300/annum for a subscription to the OED.

170. The article on color in L&S was intimidatingly long. I only looked for colorabilis, which is apparently not classical.

Article on color. Note length of third blue bar!

161: Totally. I mean, you're really at the dividing line on nature/nurture there (verbal parents talk to their kids like this; how tdo the kids end up verbal?), but it's unimaginable that having an adult speaking in adult words and adult tones to a small child doesn't have a huge impact on how the child will learn to express herself.

The little girl next door (this is the daughter of the drug dealer), who's Iris' age, is nigh unintelligible, which is very strange, because her parents speak clearly and basically unaccented (the dad is a bit taciturn, but when he speaks, it's normal*). It's possibly an actual impediment, but she doesn't have a lot of vocabulary, either. She and Iris have a natural desire to play together, but, frankly, neither one understands what the hell the other is saying.

Anyway, I suspect that, though she may have heard adults speaking normally to each other, they didn't speak that way to her.

* yes, yes, loaded term, I know

AWB, I'm pretty well small talk impaired as well, but it seems like the progression from phatic communication to small talk to more significant communication is how people get to know other people - I'd even argue that there's a continuum there rather than distinct steps. How do I get to know people without engaging in small talk? Especially hotties?

(Also, the term I grew up with for "phatic communication", received either from Niven or from Heinlein, not sure which, was "formal noises".)

"the" drug dealer? We have heard of him before?

It might be a dangerous trend for our family because I could see it extending to vehicles and plants.

Not, in fact, an extension. Cars and plants are classified as non-verbal animals in this process (well, some cars. My childhood Volkswagen Bug, Volksy; our current blue Taurus station wagon, Babe. Other people's cars don't talk.)

In Class, Paul Fussell writes that his response to "Have a nice day" is (iirc) "Thanks, but I have other plans."

On the OP, for strictly rote apologies I use Japanese. The Japanese themselves find me inscrutable because of this, but their hypersensitivity makes me want to avoid apologizing to them in the first place.

It seems pretty clear that by the time kids get to school, it's already sort of too late.

Boy, that's not a depressing thought at all.

Not as inscrutable as the people to whom you apologize who have no Japanese find you, I expect.

176. Although B.2.b gives the required usage

178: IME, hotties hate small talk, and are particularly subjected to it by those who would do those hotties. The easiest way to seduce a hottie is to be interesting and sincere. They're very grateful.

Not, in fact, an extension.

So, you still believe that cars are animals?

158: We've never had our non-verbal family members talk to us but that's completely fantastic and I'm jealous.

I have to confess here. I had a roommate who 'spoke' in her cats' imagined voices, and it drove me and the rest of the household bananas. It seemed to be a substitute for actual human communication. Another roommate asked her to cut it out at some point -- which shocked me, that he'd been so forward.

By substitute for human communication I mean that she'd say something like "I don't like this food!" in order to communicate to the rest of us that she suspected that cat X didn't like the new food. Oh, give it a rest with the baby talk.

Sorry to those of you who are into this.

external form, state, condition, position, outward show, appearance

That links us back to color in the sense of flag. Also phrases such as 'true colors.'

179: I have surely mentioned here before that our next door neighbor is a drug dealer. It came up in particular in a discussion about the relative merits of renters and homeowners.

In the 8 years we've lived here, there has almost always been drug dealing going on in that house. *shrug*

This dealer and his family are very nice people - we were invited to the girl's birthday party in the park up the street last summer, and the parents said how nice it is having Iris over, and expressed that they were impressed by Iris' speech and political opinions (she was presumably bad-mouthing John McCain or George Bush. Or the former head of City Planning, but I doubt they would have recognized his name). It's an odd situation.

Seems to me that animals talking in squeaky baby talk would be as annoying as squeaky baby talk. Animals saying dry and witty things from their perspective sounds wonderful.

our current blue Taurus station wagon, Babe

wonderful.

182: Well, that's what Geoffrey Canada talks about, anyway. The HCZ is a response to research showing that pouring money into schools in impoverished neighborhoods doesn't actually do much good without implementing education for parents about how to stimulate language development (etc.) in infants.

My therapist talked to me a lot about ways that my interpersonal issues may stem from my mom's postpartum depression, in that I didn't learn to smile until I was quite old, like over a year, and was malnourished during a lot of that time. It's depressing in that it's not something I can think through and make better, but it does make some sense.

185: The easiest way to seduce a hottie is to be interesting and sincere.

Now I see my problem.

Sorry to those of you who are into this.

It's an irregular verb -- when I do it, it's whimsically charming; when you do it, it's a little weird; when she does it, it's terribly annoying.

Really, I don't defend this as a respectable way to interact. It must be really annoying to listen to if your sense of humor doesn't work that way.

The drug dealers on my friend's block were the best neighbors ever. They didn't want complaints, so they went out of their way to take care of the street. They'd wash cars, keep an eye on things, call out as you came home late at night so you knew the block was safe. I love enlightened self-interest.

Di Kotimy a les thèse concernant ce que nécessaire pour effectif excuses, (how) prendre sincèrement la résponsibilité quand vous aies fait quelque chose mauvais et as froissé quelqu`un.

194: I would expect the annoyance level would depend a hell of a lot on frequency of occurrence.

There are (possibly apocryphal) stories about incredibly safe Mafia neighborhoods in Queens -- not so much any more, but back in the 70s. Neighborhoods where no one locked a door or a car ever, because anyone criminal knew that any sort of violence or property crime on that turf would lead to instant massive retailiation.

redfoxtailshrub if you're still reading this is there a chance you could email me at the linked email?

Done!

Animals saying dry and witty things from their perspective sounds wonderful

Like the chimp voiced by Steven Wright in the Babe sequel. I like to imagine animals talking that way, or like the animals from Creature Comforts.

Sorry to those of you who are into this.

No apologies needed. I don't think any of us are engaging in animal-talk as a people-avoidance technique.

In our case, 2 things: first of all, our first dog came before Iris did, so there was the middle class family-making with the pet; more importantly, though, that dog had a lot of personality: as my dad, who's not a dog person, said to her once, "Dog, you're a hoot." With such a strong and distinct personality, it was kind of inevitable to voice it.

Oh, and I think the original impetus was a neighborhood poster for a dog parade, with artwork of a big, black dog saying, "YO BOSS! I wanna be in the parade!" Something about "Yo Boss" really spoke to us. When the dog "speaks," we are "Boss and "Other Boss."

198. Thieves' Guild.

I've been trying to communicate with people who spend way too much time watching Fox news and listening to AM radio.

I don't need to read Alicublog or Sadly, No to know the latest right wing talking points. All I need to do is take my earphones off and listen to the people in the next two cubes chatting. The other day one was drawing a distinction between Feminists and Strong Women, to the disadvantage of feminists, who apparently don't shave their legs or have children or, well, do anything good. It's really too bad that screaming "Shut up you credulous nitwit" is not acceptable office behavior.

You know, the only dealer I've ever met who I didn't like was this pathetic fellow in his early 20s with no social skills who had apparently heard that drug dealers got lots of action, but hadn't quite put together that you couldn't simply offer free drugs to your regular (hot girl) customers for sex and expect to get any. This last makes him sound pretty awful, but really he was just so useless that it was sad. Hardly a Lothario.

The vast majority of people I know who deal or have dealt are pleasant, middle and upper-middle class folx with diverse cultural interests and interesting life stories. Obviously, most of these people deal or have dealt weed (plus maybe some hallucinogens) pretty much exclusively, but that's the largest plurality of dealers anyway. The one fellow I know who used to be really into dealing hard drugs (he's since cleaned up his act) is very nice and personable, and really enjoys interacting with people now that he doesn't have to be hyper-paranoid all the time.

Animals saying dry and witty things from their perspective sounds wonderful

"Tell them about the shortcut."

190: Seems to me that animals talking in squeaky baby talk would be as annoying as squeaky baby talk. Animals saying dry and witty things from their perspective sounds wonderful.

True. My ex-roommate was doing it wrong. Plus also, annoying. The voices thing might work better for dogs. In any case, speaking in your pet's voice if the pet (animal) is an *adult* is okay; what I always wanted to say to the ex-roommate was "Hey, these cats are complete adults, for heaven's sake, and you are being insulting."

198: The story I heard was from Brooklyn in the late 80s where the dividing line of the "Mafia neighborhood" actually bisected a block, such that there was absolutely no crime on the Mafia side, but if you parked your car on the other side it would be stripped down to the frame as soon as you turned your back. And then if you looked around quickly enough, you'd see someone hauling the frame away.

actually bisected a block

This is the classic problem with drawing boundaries. People love to use rivers (streets) as boundaries, but that bisects the watershed. Ridge to ridge (with the river wholly controlled by one jurisdiction) is the better option, but apparently not the intuitive first thought a couple hundred years ago. The Mafia neighborhood should have been mid-block to mid-block with the street contained entire, but this is obviously not how humans think.

It's really too bad that screaming "Shut up you credulous nitwit" is not acceptable office behavior.

If you find any acceptable response other than "yes, that's true, I heard it (saw it) on the radio (TV)" let me know. I've tried introducing the concept of epistemology, but I just get funny looks.

209: Huh. I can see the competing imperatives as "Put the boundary in a central location so everyone's exactly sure of where it is and there are no arguments" and "Put the boundary in no-mans-land so no one knows or cares exactly where it is and there are no arguments."

Unfogged's a three year case study in bad-boojah-dyke character

What can this possibly mean?

203: The other day one was drawing a distinction between Feminists and Strong Women, to the disadvantage of feminists, who apparently don't shave their legs or have children or, well, do anything good.

Oh good lord. I'm sorry you have to listen to that. I tend not to know what cubicle culture is like, and kind of welcome these reminders. Those particular negative markers -- doesn't shave legs, doesn't have children -- aren't limited to the right wing.

206:
No, see, the problem is that other people have to be into the joke. Also, it has to be a joke. The fact that your roommate had the cat say mundane things with no self-awareness, and no awareness of the awkward silence of those around her, indicates that she was essentially talking to herself through the cat. This would be obnoxious, baby talk or no.

Our cat frequently makes demands for attention and/or various luxury goods, but is easily distracted by things just out of eyeshot.

My experience with drug dealing neighbours is that they are annoying, and not at all good neighbours.

Standing next to a high-school friend, while he was with his baby daughter, while my heroin dealing neighbour had his 'boys' threaten him over some money is not fun.

214.1: Yes. She was talking to herself. The other roommate who asked her to shut up did so in the context of early morning breakfast table reading, and essentially said that he preferred silence, thanks.

211: Why don't people understand that two hundred years later, we are going to really wish for jurisdiction over the other side of the river too?

The vast majority of people I know who deal or have dealt are pleasant, middle and upper-middle class folx with diverse cultural interests and interesting life stories.

FWIW, this is very, very far from my neighbor. Decent enough guy, but that's as far as I'll go.

He seems to be selling smack in the park (yes, the park where his daughter and mine play) and pot out of his house, but it's not 100% clear.

||

I'm reviewing some documents for production, and among them is a Workers Comp report with the following Q&A; "How was accident or occupational disease sustained?" "Struck on head by strange man."

Cracked me up.

|>

218: I'd say there's a difference between highly active drug dealers, and part-timers. Minneapolitan might be talking about the latter, while Nattargatam and JRoth are talking about the former. There's a culture about this stuff, obviously: being obvious about dealing is deprecated.

There's a non-profit called Raising a Reader which works through preschools and home visitors in low-income neighborhoods to get parents to read (strictly "share books," which even illiterate parents can do) with their kids. They have a little video and give out bags of books for the kids to borrow. They hope to get kids to take their parents to the library. At the end of a year they try to give each kid a bag of their own books. It's had decent success.

To my eye, the dealers on my friend's block did not grow up middle class. I couldn't speak to their cultural interests.

218: Yeah, my experiences with drug-dealing neighbors more closely resembles Nattargramatt's, though fortunately with less overt threats of violence directed at me and mine.

So, my thoughts on the original post. I totally agree with those above who've argued that apologizing when you don't really mean it is crap and ought to be avoided at all costs. Words do and should have meaning. At the same time, LB is describing a situation where you really don't think the other person is justified in feeling hurt, but you nevertheless respect and care for the person enough to want to mend the relationship. Not saying anything is crap, too -- someone you care for is upset and you're not even acknowledging it? Hmph!

I think the only thing you really can do is try to talk it out. "So, I know you are really upset with me about X and I hope you know I would never deliberately try to hurt you, but I'm having a very hard time understanding what I did wrong and why it bothered you. Can we talk about it?"

Possibility 1: The other person explains, you figure out that this is sort of a raw nerve issue which affects this person differently than others based on understandable underlying factors -- like when you pat someone on the back and discover that they have a very bad sunburn. Even though there is nothing "wrong" about patting someone on the back, you will probably be able to offer a genuine apology. "Wow, I had no idea this was so sensitive for you. I'm really sorry."

Possibility 2: The other person explains, you figure out that this is a raw nerve issue for bizarre or inexplicable reasons and that avoiding tripping that nerve is going to be next to impossible. You explain there's nothing you can really do about it, they acknowledge that they're being a little unreasonable, you agree to both just try to deal with it. Eg., when UNG chews his food, he makes weird noises that drove me up a wall. It wasn't really anything he could control -- just something about the structure of his jaw or something that made, well, this horribly irritating noise that just drove me plain crazy. This was one of those where I had to basically acknowledge, yeah, it's my issue, I'm being insane, I will try to just walk away when it's making me want to snap. Good faith would have involved me saying, "Gah, sorry, that's driving me nuts," and him saying, with a chuckle, "You're such a goof. I'll try taking smaller bites, maybe?"

Possibility 3: The other person explains, you come to understand that it bothers them for really, genuinely inappropriate reasons. You CANNOT apologize here. Maybe it's the guy who gets pissed off because you emasculated him by picking up the check or the wacky relative who gets all bent out of shape because you invited a friend of the wrong race, religion, or social class to a family event. Sure, you can understand why they feel upset. They also need to get the fuck over it. Here, I'd go straight for the "I'm really sorry you feel that way," spoken with a tone of deep disappointment in them and perhaps a brief lecture on how backwards and primitive they are acting.

Also, OT, I thinlk I electrocuted myself a little bit futzing with my broken refrigerator. Note to self, it really is worth the extra effort to pull the damn thing out and unplug it.

Sometimes, simply saying, "It was not my intention to hurt you" is all you can say or need to say.

Only so much can be done productively with the too-easily offended.

Convey that you were not intentionally attempting to hurt them and then move on. I tend to attempt to limit my interactions with such persons from that point forward.

"It was not my intention to hurt you" is one of those lines that tend to truly piss me off. Whether you intended it or not, I was hurt and it would be nice to acknowledge that and not just dismiss my hurt as frivolous or unwarranted. There are those who are easily offended, and those who have a hard time taking responsibility for causing offense. It probably is true that such types do best to limit their interactions.

Saying "it was not my intention to hurt you" is not to dismiss your being hurt as frivolous or unwarranted.

There are (possibly apocryphal) stories about incredibly safe Mafia neighborhoods in Queens -- not so much any more, but back in the 70s.

Back in the Fifties too, and no doubt before that. It's a story with lots of face validity.

Saying "it was not my intention to hurt you" is also to take attention away from what the other person feels and thinks and make it about you and your intentions. Always something that goes over well.

Saying "it was not my intention to hurt you" is not to dismiss your being hurt as frivolous or unwarranted.

Not always, but it definitely can be. If all you say to someone you hurt is, "Well, I didn't mean it like that," it's dismissive.

122

You know, I usually want to push back when people talk about how great Unfogged is compared to other fora, but on this front I love us a lot. I don't have anything against content-free grunting in person, but in written form I can't take it at all.

So what explains Unfogged's hostility to robots then?

"I apologize" is also about you and your (now present) intentions.

One reason "it was not my intention to hurt you" is out of place is that very rarely does one apologize for something one did intend to hurt another. "It was not my intention to hurt you" only really makes sense as an lead-in to an explanation of why whatever it was that caused the hurt seemed innocuous, which will itself only be a reasonable thing to do if you go on and acknowledge that it did not have innocuous effects.

230: sure, it can be; so can be "I'm sorry".

I find myself in agreement with 226, as well as 229.

So what explains Unfogged's hostility to robots then?

Cite? I hadn't noticed this. If I had, I'd have gone into a snit and rejected everybody's fake apologies.

Happy 4th all. Time for RL.

198

There are (possibly apocryphal) stories about incredibly safe Mafia neighborhoods in Queens -- not so much any more, but back in the 70s. Neighborhoods where no one locked a door or a car ever, because anyone criminal knew that any sort of violence or property crime on that turf would lead to instant massive retailiation.

Isn't this a rather benign view of what mostly consisted of racial profiling?

Ridge to ridge (with the river wholly controlled by one jurisdiction) is the better option

My last boss proposed this for a political rejiggering of the Mon Valley (in a report for a foundation, or group of foundations). I think the premise was that the political boundaries could stay put, but that planning and EIR bases would become the watersheds. Nothing came of it, of course.

hostility to robots

No, no, pdf23ds/paranoid android is the robot, and he's widely beloved around here.

I'm drawing a sharp distinction between chatter and content-free grunting. There's a lot of low-information chatter here, but it's usually entertaining (to me, at least. ToS seems bored by it). Other community sites seem to have a much higher percentage of posts that are literally content-free; repeated taglines or catchphrases like all the blogs where people open the thread with either "First!" or "Frist!", anything where a plausible comment is "LOL" and so on.

So what explains Unfogged's hostility to robots then?

Cite? I hadn't noticed this.

I assume Shearer was referring to himself.

Wait?! Paranoid android is pdf23ds? I didn't realize! I had noticed that I hadn't seen pdf23ds recently. I track these things when I can, but this one I missed. He IS beloved here.

236: (A) Who said that was a good thing? I'm not generally in favor of vigilante justice. (B) ? We're talking about neighborhoods inhabited primarily by white violent criminals, who were both respecting and enforcing a no-crime-within-these-boundaries rule against each other and against outsiders. While I certainly have the impression that the Mafia of that era was horrifically racist, if the enforcement was limited to excluding blacks from the neighborhood, that would have left a whole lot of white on white crime. I'm trying to work up some liberal guilt over what I said, but I'm not seeing it.

Isn't this a rather benign view of what mostly consisted of racial profiling?

Huh?

The premise was that the mobsters wouldn't shit in their own garden, and that small-time criminals knew better than to shit in that particular garden. Are you suggesting that the actual dynamic was otherwise, or what?

240: See! This is why name changes (other than once, shortly after first commenting, to comply with my prejudices) are teh devil. No one should change their moniker ever, coughemdashcough.

211

Huh. I can see the competing imperatives as "Put the boundary in a central location so everyone's exactly sure of where it is and there are no arguments" and "Put the boundary in no-mans-land so no one knows or cares exactly where it is and there are no arguments."

Isn't the main imperative, "put the boundary someplace that is easily defended"? Hence oceans, big rivers, mountain ranges, deserts etc.

I'm trying to work up some liberal guilt over what I said, but I'm not seeing it.

If you were a better person, the liberal guilt would come naturally.

The North End is still one of the safest neighborhoods in Boston.

226, 229: Sometimes "it was not my intention to hurt you" is basically where you are, though, if the other person is hurt and you aren't willing to concede wrongdoing. In that situation, it may help to lead in with an acknowledgement that you hear what the other person is saying (sometimes, literally, "I hear what you're saying"; or, "I understand that you are hurt").

There are also real uses for I-centered language in defusing tension. Not because it's all about "me" -- but because "I" don't have direct knowledge of what you're thinking or feeling, and so for me to make direct statements about your feelings or thoughts can make the problem worse.

but I don't know how active the Italian mafia is.

Think I'm going down to Providence to get out of the city tomorrow with some friends. Anybody around?

Aw crap. Who was emdash?

(I can decipher backwards names. If you must change your name, can't you just spell the old name backwards?)

242

The premise was that the mobsters wouldn't shit in their own garden, and that small-time criminals knew better than to shit in that particular garden. Are you suggesting that the actual dynamic was otherwise, or what?

I am suggesting at least part of the dynamic was any black person venturing into those neighborhoods was likely to be beaten up or worse.

248: My only direct knowledge suggests that as the Italian Mafia, it's getting pretty geriatric. I represented a guy named Ralphie who'd stolen a tractor trailer full of copiers and Blues Clues sneakers pro-bono once, and he was getting up to seventy and the co-defendants seemed to be in the same age bracket. I don't know much, but I think there are elderly vestiges rather than a healthy continuing organization.

When worlds collide: So I was just going to do errands, and pop a CD in. What comes out but:

Section One: Starting Your Shopping

(Proper British male voice): When you enter a shop in Britain, with the exception of chain stores or supermarkets, you will probably be greeted by the manager or salesperson. You will probably hear:

Good morning, madam.

Good morning, sir. Can I help you?

BV: In the United States:

(Perky American female voice): And how are you today?

Hi, how are you?

BV: Don't worry, the person doesn't think they know you. This is just the normal greeting.

Then I come home, and a single piece of spam has slipped past the usually excellent filter. It asks: Apart from that aspect, there are a few important areas you should look at. Do they speak very slowly compared to you? Do they understand you when you speak?

251: But a fairly small part -- given that we're talking about a set of competing all white organizations of violent criminals, simply excluding blacks from the neighborhood (which I'm sure happened), wouldn't actually have had a significant effect on the amount of violent/property crime.

The only way I can make your comments make sense is if you assume all or most crime in any neighborhood is going to be committed by blacks, such that there's a direct relationship between eliminating blacks and eliminating crime. Hopefully that wasn't your unstated premise, because (a) doesn't actually make sense, and (b) dude, think about it.

252: That is, I represented him pro bono. He hadn't stolen them pro bono.

250: emdash=mrh. I'm pretty sure, although I may have gotten confused.

256 is correct.

Witt, how came you by this CD?

Saying "it was not my intention to hurt you" is also to take attention away from what the other person feels and thinks and make it about you and your intentions. Always something that goes over well.

That's a great point, and I think it goes a long way towards explaining the problem with many apologies. Apologies are often about the intentions/actions of the person doing the apologizing, when what the person asking for the apology really wants is simply a showing of respect and empathy.

"God, I really can see how that might have made you feel bad because you must have felt so scared," or the like, is far more effective than "I never meant to hurt you."

I think this goes a long way towards solving the non-apology apology situation raised in the OP, too. The person asking for an apology from you usually doesn't really care what's going on in your heart of hearts, or what your intentions are. What they're really asking for is a signal that you're going to treat them with empathy and respect. It doesn't really matter whether or not you're "truly" sorry for the alleged wrong -- or whether or not you "should" be sorry -- what matters is that you can show the other person that you understand that they were hurt, and that you will treat them with respect in the future. And if you're not willing to act with empathy and respect, you probably shouldn't be dealing with the other person at all.

how came you by this CD?

Free sample. I'm sort of supposed to be reviewing it to recommend about purchase. I've had it sitting around for several weeks and not listened to it before.

Mob Safety:
My immediate neighborhood got a lot safer once they ran the Irish gang out of town.

Sometimes "it was not my intention to hurt you" is basically where you are, though, ...

True, but if you leave it there it's not a resolution. It's an offer to to settle by not reaching agreement. If you follow it, e.g. "it was not my intention to offend you. Please explain why when I said 'you feminists aer all a bunch of hairy legged women too ugly to get a date, no offense,' you were offended? Didn't my adding 'no offense' make it inoffensive" then it admits of the possibility of understanding.

261 should have said what 258 said. I wanna be articulate, if I ever grow up. Being clean is next to impossible

"It was never my intention to hurt you" can also produce the response "Wow, this guy is so out of touch with me that his intentions don't bear any relation to what he's actually doing to me. Now that's REALLY scary."

Again, when you apologize, you can't really make it about yourself.

254

But a fairly small part -- given that we're talking about a set of competing all white organizations of violent criminals, simply excluding blacks from the neighborhood (which I'm sure happened), wouldn't actually have had a significant effect on the amount of violent/property crime.

Like it or not, much fear of crime is in fact fear of black crime so excluding blacks will at least increase perceived safety.

263: well obviously you have to make a case for how you could have done what you did without thinking it would hurt (and it has, really, to be that—double-effecty considerations need not apply). And if that case makes you out to be some kind of crazy psychopath, so much the worse for you.

265 -- I think that the other person normally doesn't care very much about your case for how you could have done what you did without thinking that it would hurt. Your intentions just aren't the issue, and it's a mistake to focus on them. It just detracts from the empathy.

"You see, I always thought that low-key flirting with my ex-girlfriend wasn't a big deal, and it wasn't meant to hurt you, so I wasn't able to see that you might have been hurt" vs.

"Yes, I can really see now that you felt betrayed by that flirting. That makes sense to me, and it won't happen again."

I suppose it depends on how much emphasis is on "I am hurt" vs "you did this to me".

"Yes, I can really see now that you felt betrayed by that flirting. That makes sense to me, and it won't happen again."

I'm inclined also to think that if you can already identify precisely enough to say that it won't happen again what it is that is actually at issue, then quibbling about your intention isn't to the point. But it's possible not to know under what description your action was hurtful, and there, I think, saying something like "here's what I thought I was doing and why I was doing it" is relevant. (Though risky since it leaves you open to the charge of being so insensitive and callous that you aren't even aware of what's going on!!!, but still, sometimes that's the only way to get started.)

To the OP, better late than never: Had an experience a few months ago when I was out to drinks with some cowor kers that bears on this. We were chatting idly about a local business, and the people we knew who had worked there. I referenced someone that the other people at the table couldn't place, based on my description. I allowed as how my information might be years out of date, and then one coworker immediately jumped up and walked out. I was mortified. Another person at the table explained that she thought that the first person thought I was taking liberties by talking about people whom I hadn't bothered to get to know, despite business dealings with them stretching back 15 years. After I got home I sent a contrite email to the person who'd left along the lines of "No offense was meant, and if any was taken, I apologize sincerely."

The next day the offended party came in to the office and was like "Ohmigod, what did I say? I don't even remember getting home!" It turned out that she'd actually been pissed off at the second person, and could care less whether I knew the name of some person who used to work somewhere.

Somebody should write a book about people someday -- they're peculiar.

Like it or not, much fear of crime is in fact fear of black crime so excluding blacks will at least increase perceived safety.

In the context of the Italian Mafia, a set of groups of generally all-white criminals in conflict with each other, this makes no sense. These neighborhoods were occupied by people who weren't irrationally fearing crime committed by shadowy other, but by people who knew that crime was committed by them and their counterparts --the crime they were keeping out of their neighborhoods was largely crime committed by guys named Joey "Big Tuna" Caparelli and the like.

"Much fear of crime" doesn't mean anything unless you specify much of whose fear of crime.

But I have no idea what point you're arguing for or against, by now.

OK, I agree that 266.3 is preferable to 266.2, but I'm not sure "making it [more or less] about yourself," or your intentions, is the best possible description for the difference between the two approaches. I think the difference has more to do with focusing on the future of the relationship than on the past injury.

Shearer's just trolling. The robot's nefarious intent is to trick someone into buying into an essentialist discourse around race and then wave the bloody shirt, crowing "I told you so!"

well, if he's not trolling, I'm certainly not following him.

No more Palin's dirty looks?

271 -- Being oriented towards the future is a big part of it. But I'd also describe 266.2 as the apologizer "explaining" his behavior -- and therefore, at least implicitly, asking that the apologizee understand him.

Whereas 266.3 shows the apologizer being empathetic with, and focusing on, the apologizee.

270

In the context of the Italian Mafia, a set of groups of generally all-white criminals in conflict with each other, this makes no sense. These neighborhoods were occupied by people who weren't irrationally fearing crime committed by shadowy other, but by people who knew that crime was committed by them and their counterparts --the crime they were keeping out of their neighborhoods was largely crime committed by guys named Joey "Big Tuna" Caparelli and the like.

But they weren't keeping organized crime out of these neighborhoods. Extortion (payoffs to do business or get hired), loansharking, gambling etc. were still present. When people said these neighborhoods were safe they were talking about the disorganized random street crime that the mafia wasn't into anyway.

I think 270 is correct. However, the original scenario described did not involve racial profiling. It involved the understanding that the Mafia would punish actual crime with disproportionate force, which would discourage future crime.

By 270 I mean 275.

275 rests on the assumption that all actual disorganized street crime is committed by black people. In actuality, lots of it is committed by white people, particularly white people of the sort who are loosely connected to organized crime. Marlon Brando as the Godfather may be limited to loansharking and the like, but he's got cousins and nephews and such who are stealing cars and mugging people. A strategy limited to racial profiling simply would not have the effect of eliminating disorganized street crime in a neighborhood.

Shearer -- globally, in this conversation, what's your point? If you convinced everyone you were right, what, exactly, would you have convinced us of?

I always thought that organized crime=crime for which all due vig and tribute has been paid. It's not about race but freelancing.

To the OT: how about a sincere apology from a cell phone in a public restroom?

loansharking

Can organized crime make any money off loansharking anymore, what with competition from payday lenders and credit card companies working the exact same scam?

My guess is no, that loansharking is pretty obsolete. But I don't know.

Yes, the idea of "loan sharking" has always confused me. There was a time when huge, mainstream corporations were not permitted to charge interest rates of hundreds of percent per year, so it had to be done on the black market?

Does it still go on somewhere? Maybe in places where people are so marginalized that they typically don't even have ID's of any sort.

Can organized crime make any money off loansharking anymore

As I understand it, loansharks are in some ways to be preferred -- lower interest, no escalating, devestating effect on credit record, and in some sense less harassment.

I don't have firsthand data, but it sure sounds plausible given what I know of payday lenders.

I didn't think about how it could be preferable to risk physical harm than to risk damage to the "credit" "score". That's very true.

Quite recently, in fact -- most states have usury laws, that keep allowable interest rates pretty low. I'm terrible with dates, but there's a change in the law not more than a couple of decades old that allows lenders to operate across state lines and means that all the credit card companies operate out of South Dakota, which doesn't have usury laws. (All legal information in that guaranteed pretty close, but probably not dead on -- it's not stuff I know professionally and I haven't looked it up.)

No more Palin's dirty looks?

Did she die? Or get impeached or something? Hmm, perhaps there is a way for me to find out.

281: Apparently, yes.

Devastating, even. Oy.

Re OP and 9, I thought you were making a (hypothetical) play on Shearer's suggestions to write from an informed first person viewpoint.

Ps. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I think the question was pwnd by multiple doctrine of double effect threads.

Is 273 a reference to this?

If Palin gets her act together is more camera-ready in 2012, could she be a threat?

I think this is the main usury court ruling that South Dakota is taking advantage of.

291: Yep, that looks right.

290: Fer shure.
I don't believe there's no dirt. Maybe it's not huge, but it's enough to convince her that a 2010 reelection run would be counterproductive. If it comes out now though, 2+ years before the Presidential race, she can exert enough spin to push it pretty far out of the public consciousness.

I hardly think "Boohoo Alaskan politics is too mean so I'm gonna quit and start running for president right now!" is a winning mission statement. Plus I think she'll just go on getting freakier. It would be nice if she took Kristol down with her.

There are three people on my street and the block over whose cars have "Palin" bumperstickers on them -- actually, you can tell they were McCain Palin stickers, but the McCain has been surgically removed.

She strikes a chord with people in a very deep, emotional way. It's scandal-indicative that she's making this announcement on the Friday of a holiday weekend (talk about burying the news), but I don't for a second assume that she lacks the popularity necessary to be a major force on the national political stage.

Man, I think we should only hope. She seems to me to be incredibly appealing to a sizable chunk of Republicans, enough to spoil things for any more likely candidate, but really unlikely to appeal to more than half the voters. I think having her run in 2012 would be great.

I think it's more likely she'll run against Murkowski next year for the Senate - beating Murkowski family members is something she's shown she can do - than that she'll be a serious candidate for President. But I guess if things are really going poorly for the country in 2012, she could have a chance. She's young enough that she could run in 2016 or 2020, etc. if she still has a national profile.

290: If Palin gets her act together is more camera-ready in 2012, could she be a threat?

Based on this (resignation speech and must watch TV), I'd say no. She's fucking high. "America is now more than ever looking to north to the future" (coorooocoocooo-coocoocoocoo). Plus bonus worst sports analogies evah.

The question really is whether she's capable of getting to a point where she sounds like she knows what she's talking about. If she can, then she might be scary. But I don't think people develop like that in their forties.

299: Wow. Wow. Wow. She doesn't sound like someone talking. She sounds like someone making sounds that she hopes make words when you hear them.

But basically her message is "Don't want to have the taxpayers have their money wasted by an investigation of little ol' me". So, yeah, there's certainly some scandal lurking here. If the country goes insane enough to elect her, she herself will be but a small part of the problem.

297: See, the word on the street here during the RNC last year was that the party apparat absolutely despises her. And that was before they lost the election. Politics makes strange bedfellows, so you never know which way the cat will jump, but I bet Pawlenty could beat her in the primaries with one hand tied behind his back.

300: I haven't clicked on the link, but that descriptions makes it sound like she sounds like herself.

Is that a pee-pee dance at 3:55? Or what?

I don't think she's going to run for anything at all. I think she's going to become a full-time media superstar and celebrity. The niche of Anne Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Michelle Malkin is now more crowded.

Sarah Palin inhales loudly.

298: Tina Fey really nailed Palin's head gestures.

Like the way her head bobs forward at 2:20 when she is saying "and I really don't want to disappoint anyone..."

We should never underestimate the ability of 'Merkins to delude themselves, but I just don't see Palin fooling many of the people much of the time.

That was an eerie resemblance. Not perfect -- standing next to each other they were easily distinguishable -- but good enough that keeping track of which was which required thought.

306: She's attempting to suck out my soul through the YouTubes!

From an earlier part of the speech, We're strategic IN the world as the air crossroads OF the world, as a gatekeeper of the continent. So don't get any ideas Mr. Putin. (And apparently "North to the Future" is Alaska's state motto, so I apologize for some of my mockery in 298 (not for much of it though).

She's still unspeakably creepy. I don't remember her being quite that creepy before. I'm guessing when this thing blows, it's going to be totally weird.

Would it be responsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to. For possible weird scandals, what about threats or bribery directed at the grandchild's father, whatever the kid's name was, to make him play nice during the campaign?

I like where she's talking about the troops, but really she is trying to talk about herself. Our selfless troops, who just give and give and give, to their families, and to their country, and they just keep going because it doesn't matter, they've just got to work and work all the time and go and go and they don't waste a penny of our tax money ever and I think those selfless troops should be an example to all of us!!!

This remains the only way I can tolerate listening to Palin.

Isn't "affair" almost always the answer? Has she been in Argentina lately?

Someone should autotune that shit.

313: Yeah, the speech is a weird mix of her word salad interviews and the winking/mugging debate performance. And I actually think there is a good chance that she really is high on some (probably prescribed) substance or another (as many people are in response to periods of crisis—so experts, Name that Drug.) It also is an interesting counterpoint to the flag-defiling photo essay in Runner's World from a few days ago.

Halfway through reading these comments, and I've had to skip to the end to tell you all that C just shoved the dog in my face, said, "Goodnight mummy" in a silly voice and made the dog 'kiss' me. We don't usually do that sort of thing.

||

Captain Planet!

|>

Yeah, medication might be going on there. She can't breathe and whenever she attempts to sound pleasant, there's this hard, clenched edge in her voice. Someone should have cut the "I polled my family" bit. It's terrifying.

302: the party apparat absolutely despises her

Yes, this. Not that I know the inner workings of the Republican party. But given that I continue to assume that they're actually not a bunch of complete idiots, and do see the need to reformulate the Republican brand, etc. etc., I don't see how Palin would be anything but dross, and embarrassing dross at that.

Wasn't she rather sidelined, to her outrage, at some Republican governors' convention in the last year or so? Some such gathering, don't really remember.

A scandal wouldn't surprise me, but my guess is that nothing about governing Alaska has been any fun compared to the thrill of the big rallies last summer. She's tasted the strong stuff and wants it back.

Being clean is next to impossible

That implication of "cleanliness is next to godliness" had never occurred to me.

err, 325 to 261.

I didn't watch the clip, but think that AWB got it exactly right when she said Palin is talking about herself when she talks about the troops.

Personally, I think the troops want to be on the early train to Oakland this afternoon.

Palin puts emphases in weird places, and her pitch jumps around randomly. Parts of this sound almost like words pulled at random out of different recordings and spliced together.

The chyron captured here from her speech was absolutely cracking my daughter and I up. In its wackiness, a perfect counterpoint to the speech and her whole political career. (Also good duck/grebe action in the background of part 1 or her speech).

It might be a loon, not a grebe.

325: it isn't original, but I can't remember from whom I stole it.

She's still unspeakably creepy

Nonsense. She's somebody I'd like to have a beer with. Or several beers. I'm sure that after eight or ten beers she'd be very attractive.

Personally, I think the troops want to be on the early train to Oakland this afternoon.

Does that mean you're actually working today, Megan? All the state employees around here are off.

Originally the salary cut/furlough stuff was going to be applied uniformly across this campus, but the latest rumor is that it may only be restricted to state-funded positions after all. They realized that if the goal is to save the state money, cutting federally-funded salaries wouldn't actually accomplish that. Also, we presumably just shouldn't be sending any extra money back to the feds right now, if we're following the "stimulate the local economy with spending" principle.

Yep, working. I'll be furloughed the next three Fridays, though. I get a floating holiday for the 4th, which I'll take later this month (when I go to Carriacou for nine days to see Ali before she leaves the Peace Corps).

328: Palin doesn't know what she's talking about most of the time! She's a quick, and bad, study, who seems to have learned that she can fake her way through many things; apparently her handlers can't or don't manage to communicate to her that she's doing it badly. We've been around the block about Palin before.

On the OP again:

267: But it's possible not to know under what description your action was hurtful, and there, I think, saying something like "here's what I thought I was doing and why I was doing it" is relevant. (Though risky since it leaves you open to the charge of being so insensitive and callous that you aren't even aware of what's going on!!!, but still, sometimes that's the only way to get started.)

neb makes a good point. Although expressing empathy and good will in the future is pretty much the point of apologizing, whether via non-apology or not, a complicated situation may require nailing down what each party was thinking. So "I" statements aren't out of bounds, but it takes work to get to a calm point at which both parties can have this conversation. Talking seems to be difficult for people.

I was a little surprised to see LB's suggestion in the original post:

Or is the sensible thing to do, when you find yourself in a non-apology apology kind of situation, to start ducking phone calls and avoiding contact until you think everything's blown over?

That's only sensible if you really don't give a shit whether the relationship continues.

Which reminds I should have supported that option from the beginning. I don't think avoidance gets considered as an option as often as it should be, especially among people who want to hash out their feeeeelings.

These demanded-apology situations have been IME a really good test for whether one actually wants a relationship to continue. Sometimes, you think, oh crap, here's this person I care deeply about and can't bear to lose, and you're sorry enough to have hurt them that apologizing becomes completely sincere. Other times, you think, no fucking way, this person is just unreasonable. I sometimes haven't figured out how, for sure, I feel about a relationship until something like this happens. It's sort of like how sometimes you don't realize how much you love someone until you see them fall on a patch of ice or something. Does your heart leap in fear? Do you not really care?

Other times, you think, no fucking way, this person is just unreasonable.

That seems to me like pretty much just part and parcel of being in a relationship -- no relationship will ever continue if the relationship ends as soon as you, sincerely, think the person you're with is being unreasonable. The trick is to find a way to empathize with someone even when you think that they're being wrong and unreasonable -- after all, that's what you'd want from your partner.

I do think that acceptance of positions one finds unreasonable is particularly hard for the rational-argument types that populate Unfogged. It definitely is for me.

And, of course, there's a cumulative effect of unreasonableness, lack of empathy, etc., etc., that makes leaving necessary.

337: I'm no expert on these matters, of course, but my longest-term friendships have only survived insofar as I am still empathetic to the friend's pain even if it is unreasonable. That can really last a pretty long time. But if their accusations are so hurtful to me that I can no longer feel their pain along with them, it's over.

Yeah, what 336 says. I discover who and what I care about, sometimes, in these situations. The falling on a patch of ice example is apt.

Is it not a little fucked up if we don't know already who we love?

337 seems right, although 336 is also right that sometimes it takes that sort of moment to know where you stand.

340: Yeah, it's fucked up, but one doesn't always feel it so strongly all the time. I can know I love someone, but those pangs of extreme empathy every so often are really helpful.

Sorry -- 341 to 339.

Palin's resigning bc her feelings are hurt by the VF article and bc she feels like the national press attention is too much and too negative these days; she's overwhelmed.

The Friday timing is a coincidence, and the speculation about scandal is the unintended result of her acting like the negative press = persecution, plus her rambling on and acting upset. Since when does she listen to handlers about political shit like timing announcements? For the same reason I'm sure she's not thinking ahead to 2012: I don't think she thinks ahead. She reacts in the moment and without a sense of the bigger picture, and all the stuff about Alaska or working in other arenas is really just her trying to reassure herself with vaguely public-spirited soundbites that she's not just quitting.

my longest-term friendships have only survived insofar as I am still empathetic to the friend's pain even if it is unreasonable. That can really last a pretty long time. But if their accusations are so hurtful to me that I can no longer feel their pain along with them, it's over.

That makes sense to me, and I think roughly the same thing applies to romantic relationships. I do think that being empathetic is in many ways a learnable skill, so that there can be room for improving your ability to feel someone's pain along with them over time.

335: Megan, sometimes I have a hard time understanding how you're a hippie. The hippies I know don't mind talking about their feeeelings, and consider it a part of normal life.

(This is NOT to say that in the situation we've talked about recently where you decline to forgive your ex-best-friend is just plain old life; I understand why you have a problem with that.)

I qualify because I have a wormbin and beehive. And used to live in co-ops.

Sometimes, talking about your feelings is great. In an apology situation, though, talking about your feelings often means that you're trying to explain/justify/comfort yourself as opposed to focusing on the other person. In that situation, talking about your feelings is really counterproductive.

A wormbin is a like a beehive for your pubes.

I'm off to support the troops. Have a great 4th, all y'all.

346: Right, I forget that there are different kinds of hippies! Stupid of me.

330: It might be a loon, not a grebe.

Considered that, but they did not look big enough and there were two of them pretty close to one another. My experience of loons is that they tend to keep a good distance form each other out on the water.

I stubbornly maintain that talking about feelings is not for dorks, but for people who have the cojones to do it. It remains completely weird to me that the dismissive "oooh, your feeelings" thing is an active sentiment.

Oh, and 352 is not to Robert Halford's 347, but rather to absent Megan and whoever her cohorts are.

I saw the Sparklehorse-Danger Mouse-David Lynch exhibit today. There's a line from one of the songs that accompanies one of the photographs in the catalog that made me think of Megan: "Somehow forgiveness lets the evil make the laws."

I have a friend who believes that, I'm pretty sure. He's a union organizer.

My experience at my family's place in northern MN was that loons would for the most part stick to themselves, but certain times of the year would be all about swimming around in large flocks in the middle of the lake, jabbering away at each other.

It remains completely weird to me that the dismissive "oooh, your feeelings" thing is an active sentiment.

That's because there are a lot of people like Sarah Palin in the world, who think that their feelings ought to be the center of other people's universes.

356: Huh.

Just two weeks ago I was on a lake with a pair of loons who stayed close together. Between them: a tiny baby loon. Cuton bomb!

Last week we saw a skunk. Not just any skunk—a baby skunk. More cutons!

Four hours ago I thought I was going to announce that I'm not running for re-election in 2010.

But then I suddenly decided that I would also resign in a couple weeks.

Somehow I don't think this is about my narcissism, or the fact that I suddenly discovered that some people are saying mean things about me.

359: Indeed, these are questions that indicate bad character on your part.

I was a Twitter virgin until 359.

359: Palin's just trying to stay ahead of the inevitable revelations about her Argentine mistress.

Getting back to the OP, one thing I've found is that I tend to wind up with a bunch of suppressed anger when I have to apologize for stuff that I really think is shared responsibility or mostly the other person's fault, particularly when it happens repeatedly. I'm sorry for the outcome and for the other person's hurt feelings, and I can honestly apologize for my role in contributing to it - but the result of that is often that my own hurt doesn't get addressed, and I wind up carrying around resentment for having to play the "bad guy" just so we can repair the relationship.

I've developed some coping strategies for dealing with those feelings, but I've wondered if there might not be a better way, maybe starting with that kind of "I'm sorry you're feeling hurt" approach, that might better deal with mutual responsibility and mutual hurt.

Bah, pwned by hours.

Hey, you know what? Prime rib is fucking delicious, as is hot fat.

OT: Hospital, surgeons, staff unable to tell effects of fentanyl from effects of saline on patients

Note the apology: she's sorry that she'll have to live with the knowledge that she knowingly infected many people with Hepatitis C

I followed the link in 359 because I couldn't bear the thought of being the only twitter virgin.

To the OP: there's always "I'm sorry. Did that hurt your feeling?"

Yeah, poor her.

369: Poor who?

I'm now betting dollars to doughnuts that the SP resignation is related to their house on the lake basically being constructed on the side by the folks building her infamous Ice Rink. Various reports pointing in that direction and suggesting a criminal probe. We'll see.

278

Shearer -- globally, in this conversation, what's your point ...

I don't care for romanticization of the mafia and I think claims about mafia neighborhoods being safe amount to this. Like saying Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Hey, you know what? Prime rib is fucking delicious, as is hot fat.

The deliciousness of prime rib is one of the reasons I can't imagine completely giving up beef, despite thinking it's probably the right thing to do.

I am Becks-style and wide awake, but there's nothing entertaining on teh webs! Sigh.

Currently listening to the Dark Was the Night compilation, which I think I learned about from Parenthetical's link here a while back. Thanks for that, it's damned good stuff.

I stubbornly maintain that talking about feelings is not for dorks, but for people who have the cojones to do it. It remains completely weird to me that the dismissive "oooh, your feeelings" thing is an active sentiment.

I tend to divide people up into 'the talkers' and 'the stoics'. I'm a stoic. My mum is a talker, which when she and my dad were divorcing when I was 16, mortified me. Everyone we knew knew every detail.

But then within those groups, there are the healthy and the unhealthy. I'm sure we all know people who talk about their feeeeeelings and their problems so much that it looks from the outside like if they just shut up and got on with things rather than harping on about trauma X constantly perhaps they would be happier.

I don't think it's about not having the balls to be able to share - for me it's just self-sufficiency. I have friends/acquaintances who overshare to such an extent, and I can't imagine how anyone would want to present such a weak and whingy face to the world. I'd rather people thought I was strong and competent even if in private I wasn't.

But then within those groups, there are the healthy and the unhealthy. I'm sure we all know people who talk about their feeeeeelings and their problems so much that it looks from the outside like if they just shut up and got on with things rather than harping on about trauma X constantly perhaps they would be happier.

Yes, this. Like you say, we all have friends who are like this, I suspect.

Although I think the boundaries between stoics and talkers aren't totally fixed. I know a few people who've had utterly horrendous things happen to them, who are stoic as fuck most of the time, but will occasionally open up to the right person, at the right time.

Speaking just for me personally, I can be quite weak and whingy about some things -- in private, with family members, or romantic partners -- but totally stoic about others. With emotional stress, work stress, etc. I just to tend get the fuck on with it. Much more likely to be whingy about something pathetic like whatever minor ailment I have. This, I gather, is a fairly 'male' pattern of behaviour.

The other thing that's sometimes hard to rein in is the persistent desire to sometimes say, to someone who tends to be an excessive 'talker', "Yes, that's all very well, and I empathise, but what the fuck do you want me to do?"

I'd rather people thought I was strong and competent even if in private I wasn't.

Yes.

"Yes, that's all very well, and I empathise, but what the fuck do you want me to do?"

I have been told that this is a very male pattern, too -- that is, that men tend to think someone telling them a problem wants them to do something to fix it while women are more likely to talk about a problem just because they want empathy. I don't really buy the latter, and I suspect plenty of guys here will deny the former -- but I will buy the idea that gender influences the balance we expect between sympathy and problem solving.

I have been told that this is a very male pattern, too -- that is, that men tend to think someone telling them a problem wants them to do something to fix it while women are more likely to talk about a problem just because they want empathy

Debora Tannen has made a career out of arguing for this claim.

I had a relationship with a woman who clearly used the male problem-solving style of listening. I think she was secretly proud of it and did it on purpose. This was a problem for our relationship, though, because I am a big winer, so she was always trying to solve problems for me. Conversations went like this:

Me: Whiiiiiiiiiiineeee. [probably about grad school]

Audrey: Have you tried X.

Me: Yes, I tried X. Of course I tried X. It probably will work, but I'm still worried.

Audrey: Well what do you want me to do then, empathize?

Me: You don't need to do anything, I just wanted to emit a high pitched whine.

368: Oh, Logan.

378: Heh. I have a colleague who is very proud of learning about this in marriage counseling. A typical conversation with him will go thus:

Me: So I'm having a problem with X.

Him: That's easy! Do Y!

Me: [looking vaguely irritated because Y would be a really stupid response if he'd actually grasped what X was, which he hasn't because he doesn't much like thinking terribly hard] Uh...

Him: [thinking my vague irritation must be the same as his wife's] Oh! Also, that must be very difficult for you. I feel your pain?

Also, I know I probably shouldn't, but every now and again I check out UNG's facebook page. Apparently last week he posted a status complaining that he was sick of dealing with exes. He only has the one. I'm generally sick of dealing with him, too, of course. But the only interaction we'd had last week at the point of his post was literally me calling to ask if he could keep Rory an extra half hour so I could deal with a work emergency and him saying no. What? What did I do? How can you possibly be annoyed with me?

(I am looking for empathy -- principally in the form of shared bewilderment -- not problem solving.)

Referring to you in the plural is telling. On the one hand, he's just trying to link into a shared culture of complaining about exes*. On the other hand, you are now a type to him, not an individual.

___
* Does he drive a truck? Is he going to get one of those Calvin peeing on the words "ex-wife" stickers?

A mini-Cooper, actually. I'll have to look for one of those stickers -- maybe Rory can give it to him for Christmas!

381: (I am looking for empathy -- principally in the form of shared bewilderment -- not problem solving.)

There's only one problem with that (making it a compound problem): it's not bewildering, merely typical.

383: A mini-Cooper, actually.

I feel a song coming on!

Shaft!

Who's the black private dick
That thinks he's a sex machine to all the chicks?
(Shaft!)
You're damn right

Who is the man
That wouldn't risk his neck for his brother man?
(Shaft!)
Can ya dig it?

Who's the cat that won't will cop out
When there's danger all about
(Shaft!)
Right on

You see this cat Shaft is a bad mother-- father
(Shut your mouth)
But I'm talkin' about Shaft
(Then we can dig it)

He's a complicated man
But no one understands that weird motherfuckerhim but his woman
(John Shaft)

max
['WTF is that jive-turkey on about now?']

I have never been skillfully responsive when expressions of empathy are demanded of me from others, other than as ritual. This goes, I suppose, to the LB's original post.

Now I understand that the ritualistic expressions of empathy are exactly what is found offensive by those commanding me, and somehow they want to command me to feel in some way that they, not me, would designate as sincere...well, it often gets very complicated as I try to pass their test of humanness and I close up rather than increase their pain or indulge my ego. Which is fail.

On the other side, it has always seem aggressive to me to demand that others share my pain. Why on earth would I want to hurt those that love me? So I try not to demand empathy myself.

385: Empathy is a tricky thing, that's for damn sure. The desire for empathy seems to reflect our desire to be understood by (and to understand) the people we care about. But sometimes, well, we (or they) just don't make any sense at all.

Um, I feel your pain, Bob. Even if I still have no clue what you said about, to, or otherwise invoking me in 196.

"It was not my intention to hurt you" is one of those lines that tend to truly piss me off. Whether you intended it or not, I was hurt and it would be nice to acknowledge that and not just dismiss my hurt as frivolous or unwarranted. There are those who are easily offended, and those who have a hard time taking responsibility for causing offense. It probably is true that such types do best to limit their interactions.

Correct. As I said, if someone is easily offended or easily pissed off, sometimes it is best to limit the interaction with that person.

Also, the original question had to do with what do you do with someone who is hurt, but you know that they are wrong.

Not much is going to help you with that person until they decide to spend their time getting pissed or upset at someone else. Let them move on in their own time. It is a tar baby situation.

387.2:Just learning French by trying to translate the first sentence of Lizardbreath's post.

Here is a fun survey from Tyler Cowen about what traits or skills people would like to improve. People, for instance, would like to improve their reflexes and language skills.

What's fun, and on topic, is that empathy and kindness are at the very bottom of the list. IOW, nobody wants to, or think they need to, significantly improve their empathy and kindness.

Correction to 389:from Robin Hanson thru Tyler Cowen.

Too bad I have to mow the lawn and walk the dogs, or I could run with those results. Do they mean that everybody thinks they have great empathy and kindness, or that everybody thinks they must claim to have empathy and kindness? IOW, is it socially unacceptable to say that my empathy needs improvement?

Fun.

Also, the original question had to do with what do you do with someone who is hurt, but you know that they are wrong.

True. I suppose it all comes down to how much discussion intervenes between the "offense" and the pronouncement that "it wasn't my intention to hurt you." I'm reacting to the phrase as one that I've tended to hear offered as beginning and end of discussion. I.e. "Hey, that really hurt!" "Oh. Well, I didn't intend to hurt you so I'm not sure why you're mad at me or what right you have to be hurt." The sooner the phrase comes out, the more likely I am to question a conclusion that the other person is wrong. I personally think the situations where a person is "wrong" to feel hurt are exceedingly rare, regardless of whether the hurt was intended or not.

I'm totally comfortable with "I didn't mean to hurt you" in the context of a broader discussion. "I understand now why you were hurt. I hope you know I would never intentionally hurt you and now that I do understand how X hurts you, I will really work hard to make sure it doesn't happen again."

There is also a difference in feeling hurt and blaming the other person for you feeling hurt.

Indeed. Excessive concern with "fault" quite frequently leads to the type of defensiveness that makes resolution of some conflicts difficult, if not impossible. This is why "but I didn't mean it!" bugs me. I don't care if you meant it. I'm not trying to convict you of Bad Personhood. I'm trying to express how your actions caused hurt in the hopes that, understanding that hurt, you might avoid causing that hurt in the future. Seriously, I think this defensive reaction is at the core of what I was getting at in my original post. If your primary focus is proving that you are not a Bad Person, you probably aren't going to ever get to a real apology.

389: IOW, is it socially unacceptable to say that my empathy needs improvement?

I'm sure I could be better at both those things, bob. The trick is doing it without being a doormat.

max
['"Would you try to improve everything thing on this list?" "Yes!"']

I'm sure I could be better at both those things, bob. The trick is doing it without being a doormat.

This is so, sooooo true.

Er, I meant the trickiness of not being a doormat part is true. max's empathy skills see generally good so far as I can tell.

di
['Open mouth, insert foot.']

Shorter 393: It's not all about you. See also 228, 231, 257, 260 and 262, supra.

Bill Kristol's intellect continues to inspire awe:

The odds are against her pulling it off. But I wouldn't bet against it.

225

"It was not my intention to hurt you" is one of those lines that tend to truly piss me off. ...

So what is the correct way to proceed when the offended party is claiming an accidental injury was deliberate?

399 If someone has accused you of intentionally hurting them, it is acceptable to say you you did not intend to hurt them. If they respond "Did too!" The proper reply is "Nuh uh. "

Currently listening to the Dark Was the Night compilation,

Yay, I'm glad people like it.

I think I decided today that I'm sick of people apologizing to me.

Well sorry.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

It may look like I was pwned, but I was actually apologizing to nosflow.

Oh, get over it already, you big baby.

Apo knows how to talk to a lady.

I can talk like that all night long.

It's 'cause apo has it pre-recorded. While you're lying back and listening to the repeated "Shut ups!" he goes through your wallet.

396: Er, I meant the trickiness of not being a doormat part is true. max's empathy skills see generally good so far as I can tell.

Not to worry, I knew what you meant, and have a hard time reading it the other way. Because I R not a tendentious dickhead.

max
['And no! Not fishing for compliments neither, but thanks!']

Speaking fo whichness: max's empathy skills see generally good so far as I can tell.

I often think, with regards to what bob said, that I shouldn't be nearly so mean, and I often think, whoa, I am a bit harsh and ruthless and unforgiving. See Governors Sanford, Palin and Perry, not to mention Larry Summers and some other people I could think of, like UNG.

On the other hand... FUCK THAT. Those people are a bunch of assholes.

max
['I will reserve my kindness for the not assholes of the world, I think.']

Di Kotimy: If your primary focus is proving that you are not a Bad Person, you probably aren't going to ever get to a real apology.

Yes. This.

And most of the time, in most situations, it is not only unnecessary to take any time to prove you are Not A Bad Person, it is actually counterproductive. (Example from real life: when you step on someone's toe, the best response for defusing their rage at having a bruised toe is invariably "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" and not "I didn't see you!" (See On Saying Sorry, where I discuss this at more length with new Who novels and sunshine.)

I have claimed for years that some wiring fault in me causes me to cry out, if I should step on someone's toes, as though I'd been stepped on myself--& to immediately apologize to anyone who should step on my toes (for being in the way, I can only suppose). I blame a career in the service industry.

I apparently am supposed to apologize to a bunch of people today for my behavior last night, and am resolutely not going to do it.

The best form of apology is telling strangers on the internet exactly what happened.

It's all stupid shit, about which I am grumpy. I do not like getting lectured to at parties.

Speaking of the service industry, I am reminded of an old adage: never say "I'm sorry" when "Thank you" is perfectly correct.

I've zero time to read the whole thread, which is a disappointment since I'm actually in exactly this situation, or was earlier this week: a neighbor thought I had made a racist remark when he misheard or misunderstood something I said. He then brought this up in a slightly inflammatory way on our neighborhood listserv. My response, for lack of anything better to do or the ability to choose between my two knee-jerk reactions ("what an asshole" vs. "I'm such an asshole"), was to repeat what I actually said and to say that I was sorry for having inadvertently left him with an impression that I'd said something else. I wanted to be careful not to apologize for making a racist remark - because I did not make such a remark - but I didn't want to say that he's an asshole for mishearing me. I got two responses, one from another neighbor saying he thought I handled it rather well and another from the wife of the offended guy saying, in short, that she was sorry for the misunderstanding but in a way that could be read as, "I'm sorry you're such a racist." Frustrating, especially when what I said was so completely innocent and I know without a doubt that there was no slip of the tongue that might justify what the listener claimed to have heard.

Is it possible in such a situation to validate the other person's umbrage without apologizing? i.e. to say "That would be a horrible thing to say, and I understand why you'd be upset."

418: Yeecch, Robust, I'm sorry to hear it. What a disconcerting and uncomfortable position to be in, especially since actual racists have cornered the market on most of the usual ways of trying to defend yourself. Sounds like you handled it as well as anyone could have.

419: That's basically what I ended up doing. I said that I was sorry he thought I had said Terrible Thing X because it would never be my intention to say Terrible Thing X or to leave someone with the impression that I would ever think that way.

420: Thanks. In the end I settled on getting out a sincere non-apology rather than dithering over wording on the theory that waiting a couple of days while I worked on what to say would make it look like I had instead dithered over whether to apologize in the first place. IMO, often an apology is more valuable as a demonstration that someone understood a need to apologize than it is as a statement of any particular content.