"non-apology," 1971; "non-apology apology," 1991

[Laurence Horn]

In her recent book _The Language War_ (2002), Robin Lakoff uses the
term "unapology", without the scare quotes, for the same phenomenon;
not an antedate of the concept, obviously, but an interesting
mutation.

She describes the phenomenon in question as the now fashionable
practice of "high public officials in this and other countries to
make public 'apologies', almost always for behavior occurring prior
to their term of office, usually before they (or those to whom the
apology is made) were born." (pp. 29-30).  Examples include George
H.W. Bush's apology to Japanese-Americans for the internment camps,
Clinton's to African-Americans for the Tuskegee syphilis experiments,
Japan's to Korea for its use of Korean "comfort women" during WWII,
the Pope's expression of "regret" for the Church's inaction during
the Holocaust, Britain's apology to Ireland for the potato famine,
Australia's to the aborigines for past mistreatment, Switzerland's to
Jews for appropriating Jewish holdings during the Holocaust, etc.
etc.  Lakoff notes that "the patent insincerity, smarminess, and
inappropriateness of such apologies make them irresistible targets
for ridicule." (p. 31)

Note that she employs "un-apology", "'apologies'" [*with* scare
quotes], and "apologies" [without the scare quotes in a context that
makes the reference clear] to refer to the same phenomenon.

LH

At 12:44 PM -0800 1/19/07, Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:
>The term isn't in the OED, MW, or the AHD, though it clearly isn't
>entirely compositional in its use to mean "an ostensible apology that
>does not demonstrate genuine contrition."
>
>The earliest cite I've found (via NewspaperArchive) is from a
>1/7/1971 AP story in which Texas State Senator Joe Bernal was quoted
>as saying he had had a "non-apology" from J. Edgar Hoover for remarks
>in which Hoover said that Mexicans and Puerto Ricans couldn't shoot
>straight, but beware if they attack with a gun. ("Had the entire text
>of my interview been reported," Hoover said, "I am confident there
>would have been no ministerpretation of the comments," adding that he
>had no intention of criticizing or demeaning, or casting aspersions
>on law-abiding citizens of any ethnic group or national origin.)
>
>The earliest cite I've found for the phrase "non-apology apology" is
>from a 3/14/91 article in the Tor. Globe and Mail that says that
>"Newsweek and [G. H. W.} Bush's staff negotiated a non-apology
>apology" for Newsweek's raising "the wimp factor" in a 1987 article
>about Bush.
>
>There's a roughly contemporaneous and more explicit eg in a 7/11/91
>Boston Globe column by Ellen Goodman about Va. Gov. Douglas Wilder's
>remark following his comment that Supreme Court nominee Clarence
>Thomas should be questioned about his Catholic views: "Now Wilder has
>given the standard non-apology apology: 'If I have offended anybody,
>I'm sorry.'"
>
>The phrases didn't start to become really common until the late 90's
>-- Nexis major papers turns up only 39 hits for "non-apology" for
>1976-97 but 182 since then, a large proportion of them in reference
>to Clinton's 1998 apology over the Monica Lewinsky affair.
>
>I'd be interested in knowing if anybody (Jesse? Ben? Fred?) has
>anything earlier for either of these.
>
>Geoff
>
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