Is there a word for this kind of linguistic construct?
( Possibly related: http://www.notracistbut.com/ )
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 “anyone could make that mistake, please don’t take it personally, but I figured you’d like to know”, or in the latter case, “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”.
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.
When talking in person you can infer this through how they say it, but in anonymous text on the internet the disclaimer is helpful.
Being earnest and dare I say somewhat unique in your discussions can often produce better results than crutching on over-used phrases. This is a reason I stick to phrases like "I apologize for" over "I'm sorry for", or "I appreciate that" over "Thank you for." When words/phrases you intend to convey become noise or just another figure of speech, why bother saying them at all?
It is then easy for some people to read such a statement as "I want to make a rude statement, but not have people treat me as having just said something rude." or even "I want to hurt you, but not have people hurt me in response."
The nature of text only communication with long turn around time means it is often for some to tell in between the two situations above. This is especially so for anyone who goes out of there way to blur the lines between the two.
Language, of course, varies, and we should keep in mind that some uses tend to crowd out others - but I definitely think that this is something like the euphemism treadmill at work.
It was nearly always totally irrelevant.
I don't mean to be rude, just saying - people use such descriptions intuitively (because it makes the story flow better), and it's not always because they are prjudiced towards some group of people.
Note that I didn't tell you about his skin color, the color of his hair, or anything else that wasn't actually relevant. Prejudice is a tough nut to crack and is not the same thing as bigotry.
Anyway - I don't see what this has to do with prejudice or bigotry. People add details to stories, because that makes stories better (at least in the opinion of the people that tell these stories).
I live in Poland, there are very few people other than white here (like, I've met black people maybe 10 times in my life), and when someone tells a story, nobody mentions race (because it's assumed to be white), but people tell "So this big bald guy says ...", or "And that gray old lady did ...". That's just how people tell stories. Is this prejudice, too?
And if I met black person and something interesting happened, I'd tell in my story, that this person was black, because I'd certainly remember that as a distinguishing characteristic, exactly like being big bald guy, or being grey old lady. Or I could skip "gray", because "gray" is the default visualization for old ladies.
Personally, I'm more concerned with the tone and context. My extended family insists they aren't racist, despite spitting out the word 'black' as if it were stinging their tongue. Also, they like to casually mentioning how much they dislike the "beady yellow eyes" of Indians (maybe), and integrate the n-word regularly into their humor.
It happens to me, too, but I at least know that it’s racist.
Some people use it as a preface to cushion their unfiltered invective, but it's in everyone's interest to give people the benefit of the doubt in recognition of the ambiguity in what we say.
Anyway, if no such word exists, I'd propose propose calling them obvianyms, after what is perhaps the best-known example of the phenomenon. Plus, the fact that the term is actually an anti-cognate adds a third layer of irony, which is kind of cool in and of itself.
Are you sure it meant blocking understanding? I thought it was more like "in front of you", as in "you can't miss it".
According to http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=obvious, the original meaning was "commonplace", i.e. something you're likely to encounter along the way, and the modern meaning "evident" doesn't appear until the 1630s.
It's pretty cool when a word evolves into its opposite meaning, but I can't remember any right now, other than slang examples like "wicked" and "sick" which don't get to count.
It's interesting (and frustrating) when this phenomenon appears across different languages. The French 'pas terrible' means not very good rather than not terrible.
I've always interpreted prefaces like that (along with its relatives "with all due respect" or the suffix "I'm just saying") as a way of turning the sentence into "This is an objective observation that should be made; don't blame the messenger". Used well it's a good way to strip subjectivity from some objective facts, used poorly it's a good way to project a subjective interpretation onto objective facts.
It was discussed as a subconscious (sometimes) way to shift blame away from the speaker as an attempt to not violate (or lessen the violation of) some social norm.
Almost seems like a cross between hedging and an assurance expression ("Everyone knows that..." or "Any seasoned developer would....").
Wish I could remember more. :/
not that it invalidates your point, but does provide a credible reason to preface something with "i don't mean to be..."