past exonerative
The notional past tense of non-apology apologies like "mistakes were made", in which a…The notional past tense of non-apology apologies like "mistakes were made", in which a speaker uses the passive voice (and past tense) and careful wording to avoid imputing intent or blame for a failure.
Meaning
1 sensesThe notional past tense of non-apology apologies like "mistakes were made", in which a speaker uses the passive voice (and past tense) and careful wording to avoid imputing intent or blame for a failure.
Origin
Coined by political scientist William Schneider.Coined by political scientist William Schneider.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: past exoneratives| Singular | past exonerative |
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| Plural | past exoneratives |
regular
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.