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| I really overuse the word 'sorry', mostly instead of a 'pardon' (which I can't stand - it sounds so affected). Women definitely use it more than men - often without good reason! Hana |
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Elsewhere on BBCi
Elsewhere on the web
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What do you think about your local accent?
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'Twirlies' is the name given to pensioners by Liverpool bus crews. Their free bus passes become effective at 9am but if they arrive before this, they enquire 'Are we too early?'
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Page 3 of 3
 Being polite
Please!
Saying sorry
Politeness
by Philippa Law Saying sorry
Saying sorry restores balance to a situation. Saying sorry doesn't necessarily involve the word 'sorry' itself - "Please forgive me," "What an awful thing to do," "Gosh, I didn't mean to," and even "Oops!" can all be appropriate apologies depending on the severity of the misdemeanour and the closeness of your relationship.What makes us say sorry? A study in New Zealand found that the most common type of apology was for doing something 'inconvenient', such as passing the salt when someone had asked for the pepper. Beyond those little mistakes, the research showed that men and women tend to say sorry for different things.Men were more likely than women to apologise for being late, or for damaging someone else's possessions (e.g. spilling coffee on someone's jumper). Perhaps men see those offences as more serious than women do, or maybe they're simply more likely to be late or spill coffee than women.Women were more likely than men to say sorry for talking too much or interrupting someone, or for encroaching on someone's personal space (e.g. by accidentally touching someone).Janet Holmes, author of 'Women, Men and Politeness', points out that it's "somewhat ironic" that the women in her study apologised more than men for 'talk offences', "since women are in fact more often victims of such talk offences than men."She also suggests that women - the "main victims of sexual harassment" - might be "more sensitive to space impositions, and as a result they more readily apologise for intrusions on another's space."It's not just personal space issues: women apologise more than men, full stop. One possible explanation is that men find apologies distancing (if you need to apologise to someone, it means you're not close friends) whereas women find that apologising cements your relationship.And who do we say sorry to? Interestingly, although women in the New Zealand study were twice as likely to apologise to a social superior than to an inferior, men did not make any distinction between the two.Women said sorry most often to other women of equal social status, whilst men apologised to women twice as often as they did to other men. Make of that what you will...
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