<story><title>What HN users don&apos;t mean to be</title><url>http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&amp;q=%22I+don%27t+mean+to+be%22&amp;sortby=create_ts+asc</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DarkShikari</author><text>It&apos;s an old rule that whenever someone says &quot;I&apos;m not racist, but&quot;, they are practically &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; about to say something incredibly racist.  I think this can be generalized to all forms of &quot;I&apos;m not X, but&quot; or, &quot;I don&apos;t mean to be X, but&quot;, and so forth.  &quot;No offense, but, &amp;#60;offensive thing&amp;#62;&quot; seems to also be a common variation.&lt;p&gt;Is there a word for this kind of linguistic construct?&lt;p&gt;( Possibly related: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.notracistbut.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.notracistbut.com/&lt;/a&gt; )</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jacobolus</author><text>I think your analysis is too glib here. [And since PG seems to be implying the same thing, that goes for him too.]&lt;p&gt;It’s typically a way of expressing anger/displeasure/etc. without turning the comment into a personal insult. If I say “I don’t mean to be rude, but you made a grammatical mistake”, or “I don’t mean to be harsh, but your idea doesn’t make sense” what I mean in the former case is something like &lt;i&gt;“anyone could make that mistake, please don’t take it personally, but I figured you’d like to know”&lt;/i&gt;, or in the latter case, &lt;i&gt;“you need to clarify your idea, because you’re losing your audience; I don’t want to imply it doesn’t have any merit, but as currently explained the merit doesn’t shine through”&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Being able to make quick softening caveats without taking up a paragraph is very useful, and our language is more nuanced and powerful for having these constructions.</text></comment>
<story><title>What HN users don&apos;t mean to be</title><url>http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&amp;q=%22I+don%27t+mean+to+be%22&amp;sortby=create_ts+asc</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DarkShikari</author><text>It&apos;s an old rule that whenever someone says &quot;I&apos;m not racist, but&quot;, they are practically &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; about to say something incredibly racist.  I think this can be generalized to all forms of &quot;I&apos;m not X, but&quot; or, &quot;I don&apos;t mean to be X, but&quot;, and so forth.  &quot;No offense, but, &amp;#60;offensive thing&amp;#62;&quot; seems to also be a common variation.&lt;p&gt;Is there a word for this kind of linguistic construct?&lt;p&gt;( Possibly related: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.notracistbut.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.notracistbut.com/&lt;/a&gt; )</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kmfrk</author><text>I think it&apos;s just an acknowledgement of the ambiguity of tone in the written word and of the tendency of people to always take away the most offensive interpretation of the comment.&lt;p&gt;Some people use it as a preface to cushion their unfiltered invective, but it&apos;s in everyone&apos;s interest to give people the benefit of the doubt in recognition of the ambiguity in what we say.</text></comment>