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The inflict/afflict thread got me thinking about this pair. What is the difference between an explanation and an excuse? My beloved and I seem to have substantially different views on this subject.
No matter how eloquent, elaborate, or indeed, sincere the explanation I furnish, it always seems that the rather perjorative term "excuse" is being applied to it?
Some help on this matter would be very much appreciated, ummm, soon.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh Lordy, have I been there! And I don't think this is going to be of any help, but. I think an explanation has valid logic behind it, and an excuse has made-up logic behind it. And most of the time, the judging of what's valid and what isn't is ENTIRELY subjective! CK, I believe you've had a fair amount of experience with ...you know what! What do say to Rous.' query? (Good luck, by the way, Rous.--perhaps you'd better take a quick course in persuasion techniques?  )
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No excuses, no explanations. Dinner and flowers and a small gift are perhaps in order? 
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An explanation is supposed to be a recital of pertinent facts. If one person has injured another, and offers a satisfactory explanation, he/she may deserve to be excused. Too many explanations are in the category of "My dog ate my homework."
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My mother used to say that I should write a book of excuses. Actually, I don't think that there is any real difference between an explanation and an excuse except context. An explanation is an excuse when you are relating the reasons why something happened, usually something over which you had control, thought you had control over or should have had control over.
Fictional excuses are just lies.
Having said that, I guess I should give context.
If you are late for work once or twice over an extended period because of unanticipated events (like abnormally heavy traffic or an accident), it's an explanation situation. You have allowed for all reasonable events, but you can't control externalities.
If you are continually late for work your explanations for the individual incidents degenerate into the realm of excuses no matter how good the reason for each discrete event. The various explanations may, of themselves, be perfectly true, but the reason they have become excuses is because you are not reacting to the root cause - you have control, but you are not exerting it. The real reason you are being continually late is because you are not leaving early enough. The fact that the traffic was slow, the bus was earlier than normal on any given day or whatever is the proximate but not the ultimate cause!
Boy, that was long-winded. HTH, Rous.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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DearCD "I don't think that there is any real difference between an explanation and an excuse except context"
Not sure what you mean by "context". Most explanations have nothing to do with exculpation.
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The real reason you are being continually late is because you are not leaving early enough. You do know me, don't you? 
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My favorite uncle told me about a guy who was always late, because his watch had a little behind hand.
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Not sure what you mean by "context". Most explanations have nothing to do with exculpation.Ahh, but here in Ontario you can enter a plea of "guilty with an explanation" for some traffic offences. This might not necessarily be exculpatory (although it could be) but would at least present mitigating factors. As to context, it seems that my offerings are excuses while my better half's are explanations!
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Ah, well! Now you're getting nearer to territory I have been in before! My ex-husband, God bless his pointy head, always was ready to place the blame squarely on my broad shoulders for just about anything that happened. I was so unfortunate one time as to be stung by a jellyfish while standing in ankle deep water in the Gulf of Cortez. Somehow, this was deemed my fault. I must have provoked the poor thing.  If the Skylab had fallen on my head, the last words I would have heard would have been, "Why were you standing there and let it hit you?" Of course, if anything happened to him, it would have just been bad luck. Not his fault at all. Like when he got his girlfriend preggers.[/rant]
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