No offense but...

I hate the phrase "no offense". No matter that I fall culprit to the crime myself, but I find it completely redundant.

See, there are many, many words or phrases in the english language that are redundant, (for example: "not to mention, honest truth etc...) but I find this one the most annoying. Go to Urban Dictionary and you'll see just how annoying it is.

Countless of times, people come up to me saying "Zurin, no offense but..." and proceed to tell me something that totally offends me. Or they say something that I would normally find no offense in (because it doesn't involve me) and suddenly end the tirade with "no offense". For some reason, I get offended when that happens even though it's totally irrelevant.

For example, the other day, a close friend of mine and I were watching tv when a commercial from a well-known phone service company came on. Just to clarify, I have never used this service in my life, nor do I have the intention of using it. Also to clarify, I get annoyed at their ads as much as the next sane, normal person does. So after the ad finishes, my friend says
" ______(insert service provider name) adverts suck!" and then said person proceeds to look at me and say "No offense".

"To whom?" I ask.

"To you" he says.

And I go from totally agreeing (to the declaration of how bad their adverts are) to totally offended that he would associate me with such an ad.

"Why would I get offended?" I say. "I've never used this service, nor do I intend to"

"Manala tau".

Haih. To said friend, if you're reading this, it just oocured to me how much I get annoyed when anyone uses that phrase, no matter what their intentions are, when you used it on me. No hard feelings, dude.

There is a malay equivalent of this, fyi. It's "...bukan nak kata apa la kan..." followed by insult.
Another friend of mine came up to me complaining about a coursemate of hers who had this to say while they were having drinks at a mamak. "_____(name of my friend), bukan nak kata apa la kan, tapi boleh tak jangan buat muka camtu? Annoying kay?" (No offense, but could you not make that face? it's annoying). And what was the face that so offended this girl? My friend, staring off into space because she was bored. I would've snapped back a reply like "Habis, ko tengok cermin hari-hari tak annoyed pulak?" (What, and looking at your own face in the mirror everyday doesn't annoy you?") but my friend was totally flabbergasted and speechless, so she chose to ignore the comment. Hmph.

So I've decided that I'm going to try my hardest not to use this very offensive phrase anymore.
To those who think I've mentioned you in this post, NO OFFENSE! ;p