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Comment by core-questions | Hacker News Reader

As a Canadian, you're missing out on the other critical half of the 'sorry'.

You step on my foot. I look at you, and say "sorry", and pull my foot away. You abashedly also "sorry" and we move on.

Am I apologizing? Hardly! The full sentence is, "Sorry, did you just actually step on my foot, what the hell?" and your reply is "Sorry, yes, I did do that, didn't mean to, apologies". Then the problem is solved and we move on.

> But in the US, I've been pounced on for a casual use of that word, as if I'd announced failure and that I owed something to the other party.

It is precisely the opposite in circumstances like the above!

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> Am I apologizing? Hardly! The full sentence is, "Sorry, did you just actually step on my foot, what the hell?"

At least in the UK, that's not the full sentence, or it could be, but only with a change in tone ('SOrrY?!') - to me it's more like 'Oops my foot was in your way I think, so sorry'. (Said of course before you have a chance to think 'no hang on, I wasn't in the way, you weren't looking, this isn't my fault'.)

Your interpretation is normal in Canada too.

Commonwealth of [apologetic] Nations..!

So basically an "excuse me what the fuck"?

No, an instinctive apology as though you were at fault, even though you (to a bystander, or in hindsight) obviously weren't. It's not sarcastic.

Yes, that's the gist of it - couched in more politeness, but the tone says it all. Perhaps lost on non-native English speakers, of course; but then, that's half the charm, the built in plausible deniability.

Are you from the pacific northwest by chance? My wife is and she will constantly apologize for things that are 100% the other person's fault. It really bugs me, especially because the other person will some times say, "oh it's ok" (as they are accepting her admission of guilt) and I usually say something like, "Honey, that wasn't your fault, you shouldn't be apologizing."

On the flip side, when someone runs in to me or steps on my foot or something, I'll usually just look at them, giving them an opportunity to politely say, "Sorry about that." My wife tells me that it is extremely rude when I do that, but that feels normal to me.

I'm really wondering if where we grew up is playing a big part here?

> I'm really wondering if where we grew up is playing a big part here?

I don't want to repeat it here, but I mentioned this in another part of the thread.

Half of my family is outside the United States, and I often use "sorry" in a similar context. For me it's cultural rather than regional because I'm in the southwest--and now that I think about it, I've never given much thought to people giving a non-apology "sorry." It could be there's a bit of a cultural mismatch here since there's an air force base nearby, and we often have people from the Commonwealth here (UK, Canada, Australia, etc).

I'm actually not sure what sort of answer that is now that I think about it.

Greek here. The only way we use "sorry" is "I have done something to hurt you and I apologize in earnest".

For lighter things, like bumping into you, we might say "sorry" (as in, the English word), which sounds more casual and not as severe.

Oregonian here. I joke that we're the Canadians of the United States.

"Sorry" in regular conversation is a social nicety, very different from a sincere apology, even though the sincere apology may incorporate that same word.

I feel the same way as you... also curious what others think on this topic.

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