I'm sorry if you were offended is the classic example of a bad apology. It can be used to sound as if you care, while avoiding any responsibility for the hurt that you caused. Wikipedia's entry on Non-apology apology says: At the time of writing, googling for the phrase "I'm sorry if you were offended" shows up the non-apology for the CouchDB talk as the second result (the above-quoted Wikipedia entry being the first), although that post does not actually contain the phrase.