Do you take back what you say if you intentionally made an unsound judgement?
As I walked to the SUV with fellow soldiers, I stated that the Ford Pickup was a P.O.S. and as a woman glancing at us was having a pull of her cigarette, it came to our attention that she was the owner. I felt a bit bad because when I said it, I meant it as a joke to the soldier who said it was what he wanted to purchase. She didn’t mind; but she did say “It’s all I have to drive.” My foot could not have been further down my throat.
IMO; We know that if we have nothing nice to say, not to say it at all; We also know to not hurt people’s feelings; We also know that our comments, aside from being opinions (99% of the time), are not only incorrect, but ridiculous at times.
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If I were you, I would take back the unsound judgment of having misspelled the most important word in your question . . . To answer your main question, you could use a self-putdown such as “My foot is so far down my throat that I can hardly speak well enough to apologize to you. Please pardon my thoughtless, insensitive comment.”
Welcome to Fluther, @deadleaf
I find it refreshing that you care about being insensitive. Too bad others are not equally aware when they state less-than-tactful opinions. I’m sure she would have been appreciative if you tried to express your regrets. Nice question!
Whne I become aware that I have said someting tactless or cruel, I try to make amends.
Absolutely. I thought one of my colleagues was pregnant (not by her looks, just for some reason, I thought she was) and I mentioned it to another colleague in her presence and she said ‘what, I’m not pregnant’ and got a bit angry and defensive. I went bright red in the face and had to explain myself – I apologized and said ‘oh I don’t know where I got that from, you don’t look pregnant, etc.’ and it diffused the situation.
@supercalifragilistic I just checked the 2009 version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Although “judgment” is the more common and accepted way to spell the word, “judgement” still stands as a valid alternate spelling. The dictionary reads as follows:
Main Entry: judgment
Variant(s): judgement
And in England it’s always spelled “judgement.”
@janbb I guess I was looking at a U.S. edition of the dictionary. People sometimes forget that slight spelling difference are quite common:
colour/labour/favour vs. color/labor/favor
realise vs. realize
Yes, I try to make amends when I’ve done/said something that’s hurtful to another person. Overall, I try to learn from the experience and grow from it, which it sounds like you’re doing. I also think it’s refreshing that you’re worried about being insensitive to others.
@stardust It would be nice if @supercalifragilistic would make amends for having been so rude and pedantic to @deadleaf, especially because he/she wasn’t even right. But, that might be too much to ask.
@Primobabe To me, it’s really no big deal what people offend. It’s only a big deal if they do not realize it and change it themselves. Thank you for participating in my question though! Thank you.
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