Please help me understand an item in a self-report questionnaire: "When I am blamed for something, I make excuses."
My intuitive understanding of it is something like this: when I am blamed for something, I tend to come up with excuses like "but I had had a bad day" or "But they verbally attacked me first" or "but I was thinking about something else".
Anther person understood it to mean something like: when I am blamed for something, I apologize.
How would a native speaker understand it?
Thanks in advance!
Best Answer
I concur with you, and interpret "I make excuses" the same as you - that I come up with reasons (which might not be very justifiable) to justify what it is I'm being blamed for.
EOLD gives the following definitions for excuse:
Based on the above definitions, it appears that the person you're referring to has probably misunderstood the meaning given under 1.1 "Forgive (someone) for a fault or offence".
However, the usage of excuse in such a context is different. Quoting EOLD's example for 1.1: "‘you must excuse my brother’".
To conclude, your interpretation of "excuse" is correct, and matches the definition specified as 1.