This mini episode teaches you the useful expression “No offense.”
Episode 197 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the useful expression “No offense.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hi, everyone! This is Gayatri from India, and you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 197 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts, on the Stitcher app, and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it, too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay. Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
I want to teach you an expression today that you might already have heard. Maybe you have heard someone say this, but you didn’t really understand what this meant or why the person said it. The expression is “No offense.” No offense. That’s no: n-o. Offense: o-f-f-e-n-s-e. No offense.
What does “No offense” mean, and when do people use it?
First of all, do you know what offense means in this expression? Offense means “insult” or “anything that might make someone feel insulted or criticized.” Or “something that might make someone feel bad about themselves.” Maybe you already know the verb offend: o-f-f-e-n-d. One meaning of that verb is “to insult somebody, to criticize somebody, to make somebody feel angry, or make somebody feel bad about themselves.”
All right. So that is offense. When does somebody say, “No offense”? And what do they mean by it? No offense means “I didn’t mean to offend you. I didn’t mean to give offense. I didn’t mean to give you an insult. I did not mean to criticize you.” Or “I hope that you will not misunderstand what I said. I did not mean to insult you. I was just giving my opinion.” No offense means “Oh, no. I think maybe you might misunderstand what I just said. You might think that that was an insult. You might think that I was trying to give you offense, to give you the feeling that I was insulting you. Please don’t misunderstand me.”
Now, there is kind of a second half to No offense. Because there is a standard reply.
When somebody says, “No offense” to you, there is a standard way of answering them. You don’t need to use this answer, but this is a common reply to no offense. If somebody says, “No offense,” it is common to say, “None taken.” None taken. That’s none: n-o-n-e. Taken: t-a-k-e-n.
This seems like kind of a strange reply, but it has become the standard, set reply. So, we don’t really think about what the words actually mean. But what you are saying when you say, “None taken” is “I did not take offense. I did not interpret your words as an insult. I was not offended.”
In other words, when the first person says, “No offense,” he or she is saying, “Please don’t take offense. Please don’t take an insult from my words.” And when the second person answers, “None taken,” he or she is saying, “I did not take offense. There was no offense that was taken by me.”
Like I said, it’s kind of a strange-sounding reply, but that is a common reply to No offense.
Let me give you an example of a situation where you might hear these phrases used. Let’s say that a friend comes to your apartment for the first time. When you open the door to greet your friend, your friend looks inside your apartment and says, “Oh, I didn’t know your apartment was this small.” Then your friend seems to think about what they have just said, and they add, “No offense.”
In other words, maybe they now think that what they said could sound insulting. They were only making an observation about your apartment, but they realized, “Oh, no. Maybe my friend will think that I have insulted him or her. So I will add no offense to make sure that they know I did not mean to insult them by saying that their apartment was small.”
After your friend says, “No offense,” you can say, “None taken.” In other words, “I understand. I know you were not trying to insult me or criticize my apartment. You were just commenting on the size. Everything’s okay. I was not insulted.”
That is No offense and none taken, a very common set of expressions in natural spoken English. And I think it’s something you should know.
Outro
That’s the end of episode 197 of Everybody ESL. Remember, if you have any questions about English, or if you have comments or suggestions about the podcast, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can use at the beginning of future episodes, the same way Gayatri recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode, send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with another episode. And until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. Goodbye. I’ll see you soon.