Charlie Sheen and his "apology"

Not sorry times four

Feb 28th 2011, 17:29 by R.L.G. | NEW YORK

NON-APOLOGIES came up in our discussion the other day when talking about the passive voice. Perhaps Charlie Sheen reads Johnson, then, because he showed exactly how it's done in an interview this week. But to raise the level of difficulty, he used three more tools of the non-apology trade as well, and all in the same brief utterance.  Well done, Mr Sheen. This is a masterpiece of the genre.

The story: Mr Sheen repeatedly called Chuck Lorre, the creator of Mr Sheen's show "Two and a Half Men", "Chaim Levine". Mr Lorre is Jewish, and his real last name is indeed Levine. Mr Sheen says that Mr Lorre used the name once himself. This, Mr Sheen felt, gave him license to use it himself again and again. Now he's surprised that people are upset. "Somewhat half-heartedly", says the New York Times, he apologised. Not really.

If they feel upset about something that was misinterpreted, I feel terrible about that.

This isn't a half-hearted apology, but a quadruple non-apology.

1) No "if" clause, Mr Sheen, and especially no "if they feel upset".  What you said doesn't mean "I'm sorry", because you're conditioning your contrition on someone else's reaction. Don't do that.

2) No "something that was misinterpreted".  This is the agent-free passive that doesn't say who did the misinterpreting.  "Some feelings are bruised out there. Who's to blame? Beats me."  If you're confused, you're not apologising.

3) But it seems you're not confused about who's to blame. The verb "misinterpret" itself points the finger the people who are upset. This one word ruins an entire apology.

4) And finally, skip "I feel terrible about that." When you offend people, it's not about your feelings. Sure, "I feel terrible" can express contrition, but it's also ambiguous, allowing the possible inference "I feel terrible that I got caught."

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/02/non-apologies