The phrase "avoid giving offence" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing the importance of being considerate or respectful in communication to prevent upsetting others.
Example: "In sensitive discussions, it's crucial to avoid giving offence to ensure a constructive dialogue."
Alternatives: "prevent causing offense" or "steer clear of offending".
This would, its advocates argue, ensure equality and avoid giving offence.
It is argued that a university president must choose his words carefully, to avoid giving offence or discouraging women students of a presumably nervous disposition.
They realised that for a decade overly sensitive souls (normally called the PC brigade) had bent over backwards to avoid giving offence.
It had once been important to know who was and wasn't a Catholic, not in my case to deny them a job, but to avoid giving offence.
Even the most painstaking efforts cannot avoid giving offence".We don't use 'special educational needs' here—it gives the message that the problem rests with the child," says a Welsh bureaucrat, a touch sniffily.
For if he advised to give Dionysius leave to quit the castle, he would be exposed to the imputation of sparing and protecting him; if, to avoid giving offence or suspicion, he simply continued the siege, they would say he protracted the war to keep his office of general the longer and overawe the citizens.
Mumblings about "respect" and "avoiding giving offence" seem cowardly and dishonourable.
She avoided giving offence, sought consensus, inched reform forward when she could and back when she thought she had to.
Until now, David Cameron's solitary concern about the slaughter of innocents has appeared to be avoiding giving offence to Benjamin Netanyahu and his administration.
For Republicans immigration reform is a trickier proposition – they need to play to their base's concerns over illegal immigration while also avoiding giving offence to America's increasingly powerful Hispanic voting bloc.
In the wake of the Humphrys row, Marsh issued a robust defence of his editorship of Today after John Kampfner, writing in the New Statesman, accused him of becoming excessively risk-averse, "deliberately avoiding giving offence to the government and the establishment" in the wake of the Hutton enquiry, an allegation Marsh said was "just not true".
