"apology" -- stretched again

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:37 PM -0400 10/13/10, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>
>>  At 10/13/2010 04:03 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>  >These have been called "unapologies".
>>
>>  Aha!  The NYTimes reporters and headline writers should be instructed.
>
>On Language Log we've used "non-apologies":
>
>http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003320.html
>
>--bgz
>
My first sighting of "unapology" was in Robin Lakoff's _The Language
War_ (U. of California, 2000).  She defines the "un-apology" (with
hyphen) more specifically 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 Bush 41'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 uses "un-apology", "'apologies'" [with scare quotes],
and "apologies" [without scare quotes in a context that makes the
reference clear] to refer to the same phenomenon. I find the term
appropriate for more general use, as in the conditional apology
mentioned in my earlier post.  One nice one, foreshadowing Mr.
Paladino's and Jose Guillen's in the 2006 Language Log post in Ben's
link, occurred in December 2003 following the Detroit Lions being
edged out by the Kansas City Chiefs 17-45, when Matt Millen--the
spectularly unsuccessful president of the Lions--engaged in a heated
post-game exchange with receiver Johnnie Morton (an ex-Lion who at
the time was playing for the Chiefs) and called Morton a faggot, as
various reporters witnessing the exchange observed. Millen later said
that if he offended anyone with his remark, he apologized.  An
unapology if there ever was one; can't recall if he was reported to
have used air quotes around "offended", but it does seem clear that
politicians and sports personalities find it easier, or more
tempting, to try to get away with homophobia than with other forms of
prejudice, although anti-Islamic sentiments may be overtaking it.

LH

P.S.  Just noticed I posted almost the same (first half of this)
message three years ago here in response to a query from Geoff
Nunberg on the "non-apology apology", as in "Now [then VA Gov.
Douglas] Wilder has given the standard non-apology apology: 'If I
have offended anybody,
I'm sorry.'"  Oh well, nothing new under the sun.  If I've offended
anyone with the redundancy, I "apologize".

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