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I've split this off from the gay/queer thread, because it's something that struck me as socio-linguistically interesting and I wanted to remove it from the more emotive aspects of that particular discussion. Does everyone else have the same reaction as me to certain phrases? For example if anyone says to me With the greatest respect I am immediately alerted that something disrespectful is about to follow. Similarly the phrase Without meaning to be insensitive (or offensive) is, to me, a sure sign that something insensitive (or offensive) is coming. Perhaps the one that triggers this response the most is the phrase with all due respect which instantly makes me believe that by the end of the sentence I am going to know that the speaker considers me to be due no respect at all. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | ||
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Yes, I feel the same way about those phrases. Do you ever find yourself using them? I do, from time to time even though I've tried to stop. I get tired of hearing "With all due respect" on TV shows. Stargate used to have that phrase all the time. I used to count how many times in an episode they'd used it. Shoddy writing, if you ask me. ******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama | |||
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"With the greatest respect"= "You're talking bollocks!" Or at least that's what I always assumed in to mean. "No offence"="I'm about to offend you-please don't hit me!". "With all due respect"="You're utterly wrong and now I'm going to tell you why". All of which I suppose are an attempt to be tactful- pussyfooting around when you should perhaps just be blunt and honest? I think it's perhaps a good thing to have your opinions challenged- makes you consider them more carefully one would hope- I don't mind being offended- unless of course someone calls me a fat, four-eyed %$&**&$! When I may be a little offended! But there's nowt wrong with someone contradicting your opinions in my book. | |||
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Bob, you reminded me of a time when my daughter was in junior high school and complained about how many people her age had decided it was all right to say, "No offense, but...." before insulting others. I remember her saying, "You just can't tell somebody her hair looks like a rat's nest and get away with it just because you said 'No offense' beforehand!" | |||
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It seems to me a kind of rhetorical strategy, similar to a politician saying something nice, funny, neutral about an oppoent, before launching into a diatribe. My first thought was that saying "with all due respect" and the like is a kind of speech act. By googling around, I came across a monograph by a German linguist, Anita Fetzer, that discussing "with all due respect" in this light.
Oftentimes, communication is at a secondary level: e.g., I say "it's warm in here" during a lecture, and a student gets up to open a window. I think that "with all due respect" began simply as a "nice" way of saying, "no, you're wrong, and here's why". —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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Saranita's post reminded me of a couple of threads in Wordcraft jr. In particular, the one telling jokes where many posters start "No disrespect to blondes, but..." or "No offence to blondes...", etc.  Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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Anothr good one was frequently seen in the current series of The Apprentice (UK version). One of the contestants, now fired, used the expresions "Well to be honest..." and "In my honest opinion..." in virtually every other sentence. You have to question the trustworthiness of anyone who feels he has to keep on telling you how honest he is. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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Thank you for starting a thread on this, Bob. I had thought in reading the other thread that it would be in interesting side issue. Certainly I agree with you about "without meaning to be insensitive..." and I don't hear that very much. However, "with all due respect" I do hear and have said from time to time. I will become more sensitive to the circumstances evoking that phrase when I hear it, as I haven't thought about it in that way before. Yet, in thinking about it now, I suspect you are right. | |||
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I think that's 100% true. What might be a debateable point is whether or not is is a good or honest thing to flag the fact that you are going to be rude or desrespectful or whatever. I tend to avoid using such "flags" myself but I know I did so in the homosexuality thread. What I can't say right now is why I felt it necessary so to do - although my gut feeling is that is was due to the sensitivity of the issue. Richard English | |||
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Would that be saying something insulting to an estate agent? "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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| <wordnerd> |
I never say "with the greatest respect". I say "with all due respect" - leaving open the question of how much is due.  | ||
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Since this group has not gained too many kudos from me over the past 12 months, I feel that it's maybe a neologism that we could press into use. Richard English | |||
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It would be interesting if someone did some kind of study on this. Listing these "hostile" tags and analysing their usage. Do people saying them perceive them differently from people hearing them? Do people think they are being polite when they are, in fact, signalling their intent to be impolite. Do they feel that the apparent politeness of the form mitigates the content in some way or do they use them as deliberate markers to emphasise the rudeness of the content? I'm not sure how such a study could be devised but the results would certainly be intersting. I rarely use them but if I do I am fully aware that they are not friendly and that they signal my hostility. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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I'd love to see those study results, Bob. As wordnerd said, I will say, from time to time, "with all due respect." Usually it is in a meeting with my boss when I disagree with her. For example, I might say, "With all due respect, I disagree with you because...." I don't mean to be rude when I say it, and I will try to avoid saying it in the future. I think it is more of a mantra, than anything...just as I might use extraneous words such as "actually" or "the fact of the matter is" or other such terms we've discussed here. I do appreciate the heads up on that phraseology. Who knows, maybe I really piss my boss off when I say it! | |||
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Are these sorts of tags really a kind of long-winded euphemism? It seems like they are similar in underlying intent. Personally, with my own boss, I am more likely to say "I hope you won't find this disrespectful . . ." or "I don't mean to sound disrespectful of you . . ." because the matter is usually that I do disagree, but that I feel that I need a way to state, perhaps more completely or just in different words from before, my own opinions, which undoubtedly are different from hers. If I were working for someone that I did not respect much, I would probably not even engage in the argument. ******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama | |||
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I don't know if this is on topic, but I've always been more than slightly annoyed by the phrase "May I help you?" -- especially when uttered by a security guard -- in a context and tone of voice that conveys the meaning "What the <bleep> are you doing here? Justify your presence at once!" There must be many other examples of superficially polite/friendly phrases masking a decidedly rude/hostile content, but my seven remaining neurons can't come up with any of them at the moment. The frustrating thing is that it is considered unforgivably rude to directly address the subliminal rudeness/hostility which is the true content of the communication. David | |||
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I agree. If I say something like this (and, like wordnerd, I leave it up to the other to work out how much respect is due, lol), it's because I want to disagree but don't want the other person to think I'm being rude or aggressive, for example. Likewise, if someone says is to me and then disagrees respectfully, I don't think anything of it. I think it's especially important on such things as online communities where visual, body-language clues as to the speaker's intentions are absent, and thus the attitude behind their words can be more easily misinterpreted. Of course, if someone says, 'with respect, that's the biggest pile of crap I've ever heard' or something else that's clearly disrespectful, then yes, the disclaimer annoys me no end. If, however, it's clearly meant as 'I respect you and I want to disagree with you', then I have no problem with such terms. I understand though that very few people actually use them like that. | |||
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I heard a similar one today, and this bugs me a lot more than "with all due respect." A colleague of mine, who was about to criticize our "pandering" to immigrants, started the diatribe with, "Some of my best friends are immigrants, but..." You know there is going to be a racist comment after that! | |||
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| <Asa Lovejoy> |
Who's NOT an immigrant, at least ancestrally? The whole business is a red herring. Or, if a German woman, a rot frauing.  | ||
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I haven't heard that one for years. It seems to have been replaced by, 'I know it's not very politically correct to say this, but...' | |||
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The important part of the phrase is really "Some of my best friends are..." The speaker can insert the next word to reveal his or her prejudice.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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I came to this forum late... don't always have time to read all these. When I was doing my grad work I did a year long study on qualifying phrases like "with all due respect." Actually, that one is a military term. It may be peculiar to the US military; I don't know. But the purpose is to recognize that one is speaking to a superior officer, send a message that you are going to disagree but that you still respect the superior rank of the person to whom you are speaking, and then speak your peace. Generally it is used with disagreements that are mild. More serious disagreements are always (if the soldier has a brain in her head) by, "Permission to speak freely, sir?" If I were re-doing the study today, I would add the commonly used phrase on email lists, "I know I'm gonna get flamed for this, but..." which generally pressages a troll of some sort. | |||
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I suspect many of us agree with you, Asa. Political correctness just covers up the real feelings. Jo, how interesting! I should have guessed the phrase came from the military. | |||
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| <Asa Lovejoy> |
Another perspective somewhat apropos this board: A friened uses the footer, "Why the hell should I have to press 1 for English?" | ||
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