I find it funny how the meaning of “I beg your pardon” has drifted from “I am so sorry” to “what the fuck is wrong with you”

but also this is a great example of how politeness-phrases get diluted over time because people mindlessly parrot them (or deliberately use them to be rude with plausible deniability), and eventually have to be switched out for new ones

@kasdeya eh, I think it's in part how you say it. this is a good example of how intonation and prosody changes the meaning of phrases. Black English especially gets a lot of use out of this. sure, certain ways to use it might become more common and others might eventually fall out of use, but I'm pretty sure we're not there yet with "(l) beg your pardon"