That Weasel, "IF"
Jun. 20th, 2013 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseI owed someone an apology the other day. Some people may recognize the phrase as there were witnesses, but I am being intentionally vague as the exact situation is potentially distracting from the point.
The situation was not entirely one-sided but it was obvious this other person felt hurt by what I had said, and that part of their lashing out was because of that hurt. My words had been intended to provoke a different response, but that was not what happened. Instead, they did injury.
I made the choice to address the fact that I'd hurt them rather than elaborate on the more complicated parts; which may be necessary in some future time, but would only at this moment increase the bad feeling all around. I chose to apologize.
In this situation, specificity as to what is being apologized for was necessary enough that "I apologize" or "I'm sorry" alone would not suffice. I needed to note it was the hurt, not some other part of the interaction, being addressed.
So I typed.
And the apology came out of my fingers as:
"If you were hurt by words, I apologize."
Actually, it came out with another more weaselly word in it than that, which I deleted immediately (recognizing it as a product of the part of me that wanted to bring up the other stuff now, and damn any bad feeling that caused). Which caused me to reread, and see what I'd really said.
I'm actually grateful that my snark almost slipped free, because I might have otherwise missed the damned "If" even as I was trying to make a proper and sincere apology. Because I didn't mean it, so I wouldn't have typed it, right?
Wrong, apparently. I've read too many apologies that included that sort of if. It came out automatically.
"If"
In this situation, that is the worst weasel word possible.
It suggests maybe the other person isn't really hurt, that they're faking the feeling or just plain don't have the capacity to feel such a thing. It suggests that I the high and mighty have a better idea what they feel than they do. It suggests that an apology should be conditional. "If, and only if you *really truly* feel this way and *really truly* prove you deserve it do I apologize. Otherwise, screw you."
Except that I know this person well enough to know they really were hurt.
That was the polar opposite of what I was trying to do with my apology.
I stared at it a while, then deleted those two letters and wrote instead,
"As you were hurt by my words, I apologize."
"As" pointed to the hurt as the cause for the apology, which implicitly affirms that the feeling is real and recognized. Much better.
(Later still I figured I could have made it shorter and simpler still by one tweak of punctuation: "You were hurt; I apologize." But by then I had sent my apology into the world.)
I hate that if. I have read rants far longer than this on why that "if" is pernicious and usually only used by people in the most insincere fauxpologies. I know better than to use that "if". And it still came out of my fingers.
This is why it helps to look at every word that comes out, however quickly and casually written. Things that seem easy, one short simple line, turn out not to be. We're sometimes trained and conditioned in ways we don't even catch until later.
I could have had my entire intent wiped out completely by two characters.
The situation was not entirely one-sided but it was obvious this other person felt hurt by what I had said, and that part of their lashing out was because of that hurt. My words had been intended to provoke a different response, but that was not what happened. Instead, they did injury.
I made the choice to address the fact that I'd hurt them rather than elaborate on the more complicated parts; which may be necessary in some future time, but would only at this moment increase the bad feeling all around. I chose to apologize.
In this situation, specificity as to what is being apologized for was necessary enough that "I apologize" or "I'm sorry" alone would not suffice. I needed to note it was the hurt, not some other part of the interaction, being addressed.
So I typed.
And the apology came out of my fingers as:
"If you were hurt by words, I apologize."
Actually, it came out with another more weaselly word in it than that, which I deleted immediately (recognizing it as a product of the part of me that wanted to bring up the other stuff now, and damn any bad feeling that caused). Which caused me to reread, and see what I'd really said.
I'm actually grateful that my snark almost slipped free, because I might have otherwise missed the damned "If" even as I was trying to make a proper and sincere apology. Because I didn't mean it, so I wouldn't have typed it, right?
Wrong, apparently. I've read too many apologies that included that sort of if. It came out automatically.
"If"
In this situation, that is the worst weasel word possible.
It suggests maybe the other person isn't really hurt, that they're faking the feeling or just plain don't have the capacity to feel such a thing. It suggests that I the high and mighty have a better idea what they feel than they do. It suggests that an apology should be conditional. "If, and only if you *really truly* feel this way and *really truly* prove you deserve it do I apologize. Otherwise, screw you."
Except that I know this person well enough to know they really were hurt.
That was the polar opposite of what I was trying to do with my apology.
I stared at it a while, then deleted those two letters and wrote instead,
"As you were hurt by my words, I apologize."
"As" pointed to the hurt as the cause for the apology, which implicitly affirms that the feeling is real and recognized. Much better.
(Later still I figured I could have made it shorter and simpler still by one tweak of punctuation: "You were hurt; I apologize." But by then I had sent my apology into the world.)
I hate that if. I have read rants far longer than this on why that "if" is pernicious and usually only used by people in the most insincere fauxpologies. I know better than to use that "if". And it still came out of my fingers.
This is why it helps to look at every word that comes out, however quickly and casually written. Things that seem easy, one short simple line, turn out not to be. We're sometimes trained and conditioned in ways we don't even catch until later.
I could have had my entire intent wiped out completely by two characters.
