Excuse vs explanation

Loudzoo wrote: "Never ruin an apology with an excuse" - Benjamin Franklin

Following up an apology with an explanation is often helpful though. I find that explanations tend to implicate me and involve reasons whereas excuses try to absolve me, and require imagination!

Thus, an excuse is an obfuscation. An explanation is a clarification.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/

OB1Shinobi wrote: i would day that an excuse is a story of being overcome by events and an explanation is a story about events that were overcome

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how we judge the difference in other people or how others will judge us is a matter of individuals

some people are highly commited to the thing at hand and some are just highly commited as a general rule and these people are willing to take a lot of measures to see that things turn out a specific way and if the measures dont work on some occasion they do whatever they can improvise and then they integrate that experience in to future measures - such people tend to see anything less than this as excuses and to a great degree they are right

also there are people who just demand to get their way without regard to anything other than what they expect and want and when such people make it to positions of authority they will usually label anything that doesnt live up to their demanda as failure and excuse making

I don't think someone that wants only what they want is necessarily a parasite or non beneficial to others as an authority figure. However, excuses are excuses and explanations are explanations they are potentially irrelevant to the direction of a goal.

The grass may be greener on the other side but the truth of the matter is the grass is greener where you water it.

Loudzoo wrote: "Never ruin an apology with an excuse" - Benjamin Franklin

Following up an apology with an explanation is often helpful though. I find that explanations tend to implicate me and involve reasons whereas excuses try to absolve me, and require imagination!

Lol, well said for you and Mr. Franklin.

Aaaargh, terrible question :lol:
I think they are the same thing, but throw a systems boundary up to differentiate them into different contexts.... with an excuse explaining something external to that system, while an explanation is the same thing but within the system and therefore carrying a more complete set of information. So that the explanation is fully detailed, while an excuse only carries a limited set of information relevant to the interaction with that external/separate system.

Like a computer monitor doesnt know what the CPU is doing, but its gets an excuse of what its doing not an explanation (just enough to display screen content, not more) :silly:

Which I guess means excuses are often seen in a bad light because they are incomplete and open to interpretation a bit.