The Popcorn Stand: With all due respect, I don’t like with all due respect

In my continuing rant about how we use the English language, the term “with all due respect” came up the other day and the old fuddy, duddy doesn’t care for that phrase.

Because whenever someone says “with all due respect” what they really mean is “I don’t have any respect for your opinion at all.” Although I guess it’s OK now to say “with all due respect” when you actually don’t mean it just like it’s OK to say “you literally blew my mind” when you actually didn’t mean your mind was literally blown.

Now we have the term contronym in which words can have the opposite meaning from their original use. So literally can mean figuratively and with all due respect can be a term used for when you actually have a lack of respect. Although I really don’t know if “with all due respect” is actually a contronym. Or is it a contronym phrase?

And normally when people use the term “with all due respect,” they’re ready to get on their high horse, although I don’t mean that literally, although maybe I do, I don’t know, because they believe they’re really going to put you in your place. So really when people say “with all due respect,” they’re actually saying, “I’m going to put you in your place.”

Although I guess technically when someone says “with all due respect,” they mean they’re going to give all the respect that’s due to you and in their opinion it’s normally not that much respect at all.

Still, with all due respect, I don’t like the term with all due respect.

— Charles Whisnand