It’s a signal that you’re asserting yourself.
What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
91–100 of 122 posts
Re: What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
#92I’m a Brit. It was only after living overseas that I realised just how mad our use of “sorry” can be. An example. One day I was on the tube. My bag was on the seat next to me. A bloke gets on, points at my bag and says “sorry”. What he actually meant, was “move your bag”. The thing is, if he had said something so direct, I would have said “sorry, what did you say to me?” And on and on…
I grew up in the states with a close friend whose parents are both from the UK and she's the only person I've known to say "I beg your pardon" with regularity. Is that a British/UK English thing too? I never hear/read it used otherwise but it seems more succinct and "proper" to me. Mentioning it because I'm actually slightly surprised to see the "sorry, what did you say" usage here and in the article because it seems…
The proper response to ‘I beg your pardon’ (and ‘I beg to differ’) is always, “alright then, beg!”
Re: What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
#93I’m a Brit. It was only after living overseas that I realised just how mad our use of “sorry” can be. An example. One day I was on the tube. My bag was on the seat next to me. A bloke gets on, points at my bag and says “sorry”. What he actually meant, was “move your bag”. The thing is, if he had said something so direct, I would have said “sorry, what did you say to me?” And on and on…
Was on a London bus early one morning, not many people on the bus. One bloke got up from his seat to get off, he had a big bag and knocked it against one of the poles on his way out. He said sorry to the pole, there was no one else around. One of the most British things I’ve seen.
Canada/Canadians too. They apologize to furniture as well...
Re: What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
#94I’m a Brit. It was only after living overseas that I realised just how mad our use of “sorry” can be. An example. One day I was on the tube. My bag was on the seat next to me. A bloke gets on, points at my bag and says “sorry”. What he actually meant, was “move your bag”. The thing is, if he had said something so direct, I would have said “sorry, what did you say to me?” And on and on…
Separately, I love the word “bloke”. I wish it would take off here in the US.
Bloke is definitely not as common in the UK as it is in NZ and Australia.
Just like togs, which I've never heard anybody say here though I've read that parts of Ireland still use it.
Re: What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
#95I’m a Brit. It was only after living overseas that I realised just how mad our use of “sorry” can be. An example. One day I was on the tube. My bag was on the seat next to me. A bloke gets on, points at my bag and says “sorry”. What he actually meant, was “move your bag”. The thing is, if he had said something so direct, I would have said “sorry, what did you say to me?” And on and on…
What’s mad about that? The sorry was for interrupting and engaging you and having a favour to ask. The sorry itself wasn’t a command, it was an apology for the implied command.
> The sorry was for interrupting and engaging you and having a favour to ask.
Sorry (heh), but it could easily be a sarcastic use (#4), not apologetic (#3) and not softening (#5). Not even tone can always differentiate between the apologetic "I'm sorry to bother you" and the non-apologetic "I'm sorry that your parents failed in raising you". They could be asking you for a favour, but they could just as easily be calling you inconsiderate of others because seats are for people not bags.
Re: What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Separately, I love the word “bloke”. I wish it would take off here in the US.
Bloke is definitely not as common in the UK as it is in NZ and Australia. Just like togs, which I've never heard anybody say here though I've read that parts of Ireland still use it.
Swimming togs? That's what they were commonly called at my primary school in Belfast. Never heard it used since!
Same goes for "gutties" - rubber-soled shoes to wear in the gym (presumably from gutta-percha).
I think "bloke" was more common in the 90s over here. It picked up an association with boorishness, especially when used as an adjective - "blokey" was almost the middle-aged equivalent of "laddish".
Re: What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s mad about that? The sorry was for interrupting and engaging you and having a favour to ask. The sorry itself wasn’t a command, it was an apology for the implied command.
> The sorry was for interrupting and engaging you and having a favour to ask. Sorry (heh), but it could easily be a sarcastic use (#4), not apologetic (#3) and not softening (#5). Not even tone can always differentiate between the apologetic "I'm sorry to bother you" and the non-apologetic "I'm sorry that your parents failed in raising you". They could be asking you for a favour, but they could just as easily be call…
I’d argue tone is often useful. But you’re right - as someone who habitually employs subtle sarcasm I’ve found a large portion of the population are not really in tune to that subtlety. For me it’s a good quick differentiator to identify strangers I might actually get along with. That’s an aside though… in our case the meaning & intent might be opaque, but the result is the same. In my case, I either make someone laugh, or weird them out.
Re: What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
#98“Thank you” seems to be similarly versatile in London. You can’t go 30 minutes without hearing it. Once when I was in a bookshop and approached the counter with a couple books to buy, the shopkeeper opened with “thank you”. To this day I don’t understand what that was about.
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Re: What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
#99They forgot “I’m sorry?” meaning “You can’t have said what I though you said, can you repeat that?”.
Re: What British people mean when they say 'sorry'
#100I came here to say sorry. Actually interesting I remember saying sorry in the sense of, "Can you repeat what you said?" and it annoyed one of my friends so much that she essentially trained me to say pardon instead because it was annoying her. Didn't realize it was part of my Canadian heritage.
Sub question if anyone is interested. I often have to ask people to repeat themselves but when I go get hearing tests they say I'm perfect. It's a little annoying. I've copped it out to this framework: the hearing tests only tests the range of the human voice, but it doesn't test say, understanding through other systems. For example, I cannot for the life of me understand anything my nieces or nephews say over the ph…
I have the same observation, when I need to ask someone to repeat, it's usually not because I didn't hear the sound, it's that my brain CPU struggled to process and decode the sound fast enough. Sometimes I ask to repeat and while saying it, the background brain CPU thread figures out what was said.
This usually happens in my non-native languages (but not only), and especially for speakers with accents I'm not used to.