frankly

Frankly, I’m heartily sick of three expressions: frankly, with all due respect, and no offense, but…
With all due respect, it’s not the words that offend me. The words themselves are perfectly useful and civil expressions.
No, what offends me is the widespread use of them as magic words excusing the speaker from the social compact. They operate as disclaimers, relieving the speaker of the constraints of both civility and accuracy. For some people, phrases like frankly, with all due respect, and no offense, but… serve as a warning bell. They mean “In a moment, I’m going to step outside the bounds of civil discourse, and I won’t feel a scintilla of remorse, because I’ve uttered the magic word.”
No offense, but that’s a sad excuse for debate.