Here in the South, the phrase used is 'bless her/his heart." It is usually used to accompany snarky comments/insults when speaking to a third party.
Example:
"She’s just a big fat cow, look at her killing herself…bless her heart. "
“He’s dumber than a box of hair, bless his heart.”
"Bless his heart, that’s the ugliest child I’ve ever seen. Maybe his momma had a dalliance with a llama.
etc.
Anyway, suffice it to say, neither this or ‘no offense’ tend to blunt any of the offensiveness of insults- in fact, it heightens it. of course, I also tend to think that people that feel the need to ‘tell it like it is’ or ‘tell truth’ are, without exception, assholes.
Most of the time when “no offense” is used before saying something it says to me that the user knows what s/he is about to say is rude and possibly hurtful, and not only doesn’t s/he have the maners to keep quiet, but wants to make it your fault if your fealings get hurt. I think it is far ruder and much more dishonest than just saying what is on your mind. I don’t want to spend time with a person that figures he can say nasty stuff at whim and have no fallout from it because of course the other person is just oversensitive.
I actually said one of these yesterday… After returning to the hardware store to get a second thing when the first didn’t work, I said to the clerk who had helped me both times “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really hope I don’t see you again today.” He laughed, so I take it that he wasn’t offended. :dubious:
I find that in general, I’m not offended by the phrase “no offense,” but I’m almost always offended by whatever is said right after it.
I find that “no offense” = “I know I’m about to say something offensive, but I’m going to say it anyway, and I don’t want any negative consequences, 'kay?”
My usual response is to interrupt to say, “Hey, if you’re about to say something offensive, maybe you shouldn’t.” Not very polite, I know, but better than what I’d have to say afterward.
In my experience, “No Offense” is used mostly by people who genuinely don’t mean any offense, but are aware that what they’re about to say could be misinterpreted. Same with “don’t take this the wrong way”. This is probably because most of the time I hear them coming from a certain friend with a longstanding habit of saying offensive things and not meaning them offensively. Surprisingly enough, the effect of this is that when he says “No offense”, I don’t take offense. Amazing how words can actually have their intended effect sometimes.
I suffered a co-worker for about 6 months that produced scenes like this:
I’ve been out of Spain for about 9 months. I’m sitting at someone else’s computer, teaching that someone and 5 other people how to create a Production Order in the new computer system we’re testing. This guy comes up and says “not meaning to bother you, but why do Spaniards think it’s bad that the Prince’s fiancee is a plebeian?” blink blink
I turn around to another Spaniard, who has been out of the country for only 48 hours, and ask “we’re finally marrying him away?”
The Spaniard says “yup, some chick who used to be on TV news, cute blonde”
I say “oh, oh good, bloody time he got hitched”, then turn around to the guy with the question and say “excuse me, what was your question?”
He kept doing that. The busier you were, the more likely he was to come up to you “not meaning to bother you” and the more irrelevant the question.
Another guy I know will say things like “no offense, but how come your mom didn’t just kill you, with that face?”
I know people who genuinely say “ok, what I want to say is kind of complicated so I hope I’ll be able to do it in a clear way and without pissing any of you guys off”. But yes, I also know many people whose “no offense” means “I’m about to slap you”.
I think it depends on the situation and the people involved, and how well you know them. A man whom I don’t know very well saying “No offense, but …” and following it up with a snarky comment about women being terrible drivers would ping high on my sour meter.
My good friend, with whom I have many pleasant yet animated conversations about football, saying “No offense, but you are HIGH if you think Payton Manning is going to crash and burn once he hits the NFL” (yes, I actually said that, so apparently I was high) … then it’s just an expression used to distance personal feelings from a heated conversation.
A very wise teacher of mine once said that any denial at the beginning of a statement is false.
For instance:
“No offense” means the person is about to say something offensive.
"I don’t mean to be rude, but… " means the person intends to say something rude.
“I don’t want to interrupt, but…” means the person is interrupting
And so on.
Maybe, but sometimes one almost has to say things which could be offensive. I work for local government and I frequently cross paths with people who need a good dose of reality; ideology in national politics ain’t nothing compared to the ideology of What I Can Do With My Property. So one may not actually be saying anything offensive; however, when one is speaking to a true believer, one may wish to be sure the true believer understands this right up front.