The most recent Stephan Pastis Pearls Before Swine strip:
A classic NAA (non-apology apology): if you take offence, it’s your problem (in the strip: I’m sorry you were offended; ramped up: I’m sorry you’re an oversensitive ninny) (see Edwin L. Battistella’s Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology (Oxford, 2014))
From Wikipedia:
A non-apology apology, sometimes called a backhanded apology, empty apology, nonpology, or fauxpology, is a statement in the form of an apology that does not express remorse for what was done or said, or assigns fault to those ostensibly receiving the apology. It is common in politics and public relations.
From my 8/16/17 “Gay slurs in New Zealand” (edited a bit):
When Hamilton City NZ councillor Garry Mallett described a pink piece of paper from an agenda last week as a homo colour, before using the word fags, his comments were perceived as homophobic by his colleagues
… What Mallett did in his original response to pink paper — an extravagant irrational reaction to a small thing, expressing grievance and an apprehension of threat — is one of several tactics for saying nasty things while disclaiming responsibility for them:
I was just kidding (some people can’t take a joke)
It was a slip of the tongue (everybody makes little mistakes)
I didn’t know that others would be offended by what I said (this one supplies the classic non-apology apology in advance)
It’s just the way guys talk amongst themselves (don’t rag on me for being a Real Man, bitch)
I was just using words neutrally, the way some other people use them (Mallett’s choice, citing AMZ on fag(got))
Mallett’s full set of responses manages to mix paranoia, aggression, contempt, and evasiveness.
What they lack is any apologetic tone. As do Rat’s statements to Pig, culminating in Rat offering a repetition of I’m sorry you were offended when Pig asks for another apology; Rat ostentatiously misinterprets Pig’s another ‘an additional, different, thing of the same type as one already mentioned’ (can I have another apple?) as another ‘an additional occurrence of a thing already mentioned’ (can I have another A-flat pitch?).
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