Apologies for Being a Language Stickler

I belong to four professional listservs at work, so I'm constantly getting emails from librarians around the country discussing various issues ranging from information literacy, library instruction, community college libraries, digital reference, and reference in general. Sometimes it feels like about 30% of my work day is spent cleaning out my email inbox.

One phenomenon I've noticed a lot lately is that someone will post the same message to three different listservs, so that I receive that same message three times. When they do this, they will put the following disclaimer at the top of their message, APOLOGIES FOR RECEIPT OF DUPLICATE POSTINGS, or something to that affect. What they're doing, in essence, is apologizing for something they don't regret doing, and have every intention of doing again.

Is that really an apology? Are they really asking for my forgiveness? There's an old joke about it being easier to ask for forgiveness (afterward) than to ask for permission (ahead of time.) But this method of bundling your transgression along with the apology seems to bypass those two options altogether. You're neither asking for forgiveness nor permission. I guess what they're really asking for is tolerance. The word "apology" in that sense is shorthand for, "I acknowledge this may annoy you, but that's not going to stop me from doing it anyway."

What annoys me most is not the multiple messages cluttering my inbox (although it does annoy me), but the misappropriation of the word apology. You're not sorry. You don't regret what you're doing. You're not asking for my forgiveness. So stop "apologizing."

What should people use instead of an apology? Here's my suggestion for a more appropriate disclaimer: Posted to several listservs. If multiple receipts bother you, you're cordially invited to suck it. At least that would be honest.