May 27, 2008
On Saying You're Sorry, Or Not
The academic linguists at Mark Liberman's Language Log have been examining the ritual apology for sometime. In an excellent article entitled A Non Apology of the First Kind, LIberman uses Geoff Pullum's elucidation of the three different ways of saying you're sorry and applies the model specifically to Hillary's apology for her leaky unconscious wish that something untoward happen to Obama.
Well, all of us here at dakota think it behoves everyone to bear these principles in mind when listening to apologies of any kind, or in creating one's own, and thus have provided this handy excerpt for your perusal:
The word sorry is used in three ways.First, sorry can be used with a complement having the form of what The Cambridge Grammar calls a content clause:
(1) I'm sorry that the the political situation in the Holy Land is still mired in violence, because I wanted to go to Bethlehem at Christmas.
If I utter (1), I am not apologizing; I have never caused or defended any of the violence in the Middle East. It's not my fault. I just regret that the situation persists. This use can constitute an apology (as Jonathan Wright reminded me when he read the first version of this post), but only when the content clause subject is first person as well: I'm sorry I hit you is an apology, but I'm sorry you were hit is not, so watch for that subject.
Second, sorry can be used with a preposition phrase headed by for with a complement noun phrase denoting a sentient creature:
(2) I'm sorry for that poor little kitten, which seems to have figured out how to climb up a tree without having any idea how to get down.
If I utter (2), I am not apologizing; I never suggested to the stupid kitten that it should climb fifty feet up into a beech tree. I'm just expressing sympathy, as a fellow mammal, for its present plight.
And third, sorry can be used with a preposition phrase headed by for where the preposition has as its complement a subjectless gerund-participial clause or a noun phrase denoting an act:
(3) a. I'm sorry for doing what I did; I behaved like an utter pig, and you have a right to be angry.
(3) b. I'm sorry for my actions last night; I should never have acted that way and I want you to forgive me.Only this third kind of use can constitute an apology, as opposed to a statement of regret about the truth of a proposition or a statement of sympathy for a fellow creature.
Obama does a nice job stepping up to the plate when he's wrong.
George Bush has solved the problem by never doing anything for which he feels sorry.
Photo note: Flowers again (sorry.... truly, we have subjected our readers to far too many this season) Perhaps a Colorado columbine, looking quite remorseful, don't you think?