What's the difference between an Excuse and a Reason?

Question

How do you really know the different between one or the other?

Answer 1

Excuse usually implies fault is absent, whereas reason is simply the cause.

Answer 2

The difference between a reason and an excuse is an opinion.

A reason explains causality. "The bucket fell on your head because I dropped it." There is no judgment involved. It is simply what happened.

An excuse is a reason that is intended to mitigate your responsibility. Whether it actually does so will depend on the person to whom you are giving your excuse. "I dropped the bucket because a sniper shot me in the spine, preventing me from voluntarily continuing to hold it." That is also (perhaps) what happened, but it explains WHY it happened and WHY it's not my fault.

Many excuses, of course, are lies. And some people will give you only excuses when you are asking for reasons. "What happened?" "It's not my fault!" So it goes.

Answer 3

An excuse is a pretend reason. oftentimes the genuine reason (eg for failure) isn't socially perfect, so an excuse is made up. occasion: "i'm previous due through fact I felt a ought to masturbate before coming here" isn't socially perfect, so this excuse is used: "i'm previous due through fact of a flat tyre."

Answer 4

According to the American Heritage Dictionary

ex·cuse (¹k-sky›z“) tr.v. ex·cused, ex·cus·ing, ex·cus·es. 1.a. To explain (a fault or an offense) in the hope of being forgiven or understood. b. To seek to remove the blame from. 2.a. To grant pardon to; forgive. b. To make allowance for; overlook. 3. To serve as justification for. 4. To free, as from an obligation or duty; exempt. 5. To give permission to leave; release. --ex·cuse (¹k-sky›s“) n. 1. An explanation offered to justify or obtain forgiveness. 2. A reason or grounds for excusing. 3. The act of excusing. 4. A note explaining an absence. 5. Informal. An inferior example. --ex·cus“a·ble adj. --ex·cus“a·ble·ness n. --ex·cus“a·bly adv. --ex·cus“er n.

And....

rea·son (r¶“z…n) n. 1. The basis or motive for an action, a decision, or a conviction. 2. A declaration made to explain or justify an action, a decision, or a conviction. 3. An underlying fact or cause that provides logical sense for a premise or an occurrence. 4. The capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; intelligence. 5. Good judgment; sound sense. 6. A normal mental state; sanity. 7. Logic. A premise, usually the minor premise, of an argument. --rea·son v. rea·soned, rea·son·ing, rea·sons. --intr. 1. To use the faculty of reason; think logically. 2. To talk or argue logically and persuasively. 3. Obsolete. To engage in conversation or discussion. --tr. 1. To determine or conclude by logical thinking. 2. To persuade or dissuade (someone) with reasons. --idioms. by reason of. Because of. in reason. With good sense or justification; reasonably. within reason. Within the bounds of good sense or practicality. with reason. With good cause; justifiably. --rea“son·er n.

Answer 5

"We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse." These were famous words of Rudyard Kipling about "excuse and reason." Excuses make us fall short of our achievements. Sometimes things are way beyond our control. However, if you investigate each failure, you might find that coincidences are also are results of your actions. No excuses are worth your time. Read more quotes about excuses on this page.

Answer 6

An excuse is an willful and often deceptive way in which one evades one's responsibility. A reason is a truthful articulation of how one's responsibilities mitigates or prevents one from fulfilling an obligation.

Answer 7

Excuse is when you feel guilty for doing or not-doing something. A Reason doesn't or might not have anything to do with how you personally feel about the issue, it might just state the fact of a matter

Answer 8

An excuse will absolve one of responsibility. Such as, "I don't have my homework to turn in because my house burned down, and I couldn't save it to turn it in."

A reason may not absolve one of responsibility. "I don't have my homework because my dog ate it." This presumes that you could have reasonably been expected to keep your homework some place inaccessible to the dog.

Answer 9

excuses are silly, just trying to protect us, but truth is the only real protector. and reasons are what cause ppl to find excuses....

Answer 10

an exuse attemps to eliminate personal fault while a reason is actually the reason.

i hate when people call reasons exuses!