Someone actually told me that at work once! And at first I felt defensive but after I was glad they did. So basically I apologized because I noticed it made me feel better and made my stutter let go far easier if I said something about it, like acknowledged it and apologized after acknowledging it just as a side I guess. I'd always stutter into the beginning and then felt the apology was my release and it turned into this necessary crutch for me. Once I realized people might frown upon it since he kind of said directly, though I knew he meant well, that it isn't the middle ages and everyone knows people have problems of their own and many diseases and impediments and so on so no need to apologize. But he said it like starting with "Dude." If you know what I mean. Frankly it was good for me, it helped me no longer feel this need to start starting to get out of it with an apology because...I got so used to that pattern that it seemed to engrain in me. Instead I began finding ways to deal with it from the beginning, maybe first few words in at first and eventually the onset stopped in the beginning as I put myself out there still without such a so called crutch/fall back that I thought I needed. Edit: Sorry for the long run on, I was multi-tasking while writing this reply and that never works out, lol.