yet another pondering brought to you by sleep deprivation and hardcore processing

[kaberett]

I think the reason there's an entire societal mess around "I am sorry" ("I recognise that I have done you a wrong and accept culpability" versus "wow, this situation is absolute shite and I wish to express commiserations") is in part because "I regret" has become old-fashioned/lawyerspeak. Thoughts? Not an exact mapping, but I think there is something there.

Comments

[silveradept]

Certainly a possibility. Although we often use a follow-up sentence to disambiguate, such as "My bad."

[katherine]

I tend to refer to "sympathy sorry" versus "blame sorry", but that's in a very informal context.

[highlyeccentric]

Also use of 'I regret' can be very obviously a way to *avoid* responsibility. Cf, former Australian PM Howard's statements about -regretting- various harmful things done to Indigenous Australians.

[legionseagle]

Oh, God, citing Howard's non-apology to the First Nations as a means to batter people who're happy to commiserate but don't feel responsible seems to be turning into the new Godwin's law.

Someone cited it to me when I said I was horrified and disgusted by Caitlin Moran's actions in forcing the two Sherlock stars to read explicit fanfic aloud - unwarned for - at the BFI premier of Series 3, but I couldn't join in a collective apology from fandom, because this was quintessentially the sort of situation I was sorry about but not sorry for.

[milkymoon]

It's a shame there aren't clearer ways of saying 'sorry' as people will get confused when you say 'sorry' (in the 'I sympathise' sense) and think you're apologising to them for doing something wrong. So it end up being clarified with other words like 'no worries' and 'no, really, I'm sorry that happened to you'.

[sidheag]

Yes. I think it's easy to see why "regret" has become lawyerspeak etc. - it's too easy (for officials!) to use when "I apologise" would be appropriate, and tainted thereby, and even if it weren't tainted, it's hard to recognise "I regret" as being worth anything when "I apologise" is what one wants.

Actually, I think the world would be a better place if we used regret more and apology less. Apology's only better, I think, if it comes with a commitment to change such that nothing like that will ever happen again, and that's rare; I'd rather people were honest about it (thinking about an always-unreliable colleague who apologises every time and then does the same next time).

The other side: when I die you will find "never attribute to malice what can be explained by mere incompetence" engraved on my heart, but even so, both as sinned against and sinner I find it hard to admit how much incompetence there is in me and everyone else! That's the dark side of agency if you like - we prefer a world in which our actions and other people's are under full control, and actually, it ain't so.

[auguris]

You've definitely hit on something, I think. Showing sincere regret is showing weakness, and That Is Not Done.