Wednesday, February 23, 2011

No Offense...

Normally I wouldn't post on Wed - or at least it wouldn't be anything but a picture for wordless wednesday, but today I am a little frustrated.

I hate the words "no offense" together. The way I see it, if you have to start a sentence or thought with them, chances are the words you are about to say will in some way be offensive or hurtful. At least that's how it seems to me.

Just today for example, I was watching a youtube video. As I sat there reading through a couple comments I saw the following (and I am paraphrasing...)

"No offense, but you really need to get control of your child. She is out of line so many times and all you do is laugh it off. This is not good parenting. Oh but I love your videos...."


So this is not word for word, but this is generally what it says. Really, you don't mean to offend them even though you are questioning their parent skills. Yet you love to watch the videos they post. How does this make sense? It doesn't. If you are really concerned and aren't trying to interject your own opinion, you wouldn't start with no offense. As a parent and having watched their videos, maybe they aren't the perfect parents, but something tells me they do a good job with their children. They all are very polite and kind in the videos I have seen. The situation that the comment above addressed, yes, they probably should have disciplined their daughter (and perhaps they did, I wouldn't want that on video).

I just think it's so dumb and pointless to "No offense, but..." Maybe you don't want it to hurt, but if you need to put those three words at the beginning, it's probably not going to be a great statement.

Maybe I am off. All I know is it was bothering me so I thought I would blog about it.

Thanks for listening - or not :)

Have a great day sunshines!

5 comments:

Ali said...

I am so glad you stopped by my blog today. And I think you are right on here, Denise. I don't think people realize how hurtful their words can be. And until you've been there, you don't know. Amen, girl!

Anonymous said...

You are absolutely right!!

Renee said...

I think you're totally right about "no offense" and agree with you wholeheartedly. The other words that get to me are when people say something truly awful and hurtful and then follow with "just kidding!" as if that somehow magically negates the sting/wounds inflicted in the statement. Great post!

Jennielle said...

EXACTLY! I think we should keep some very important advice in mind here: "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all." -Thumper :D

Carrie said...

Yes! Usually when you have to preface something with 'no offense' that's because it's offensive!!! :)