Even Americans have been forced to accept the value of our favourite self-effacing five-letter word
Illustration by David Foldvari.
Americans inclined to mock the British habit of unnecessarily saying sorry may soon be called upon to apologise as a result of research undertaken by their countrymen. A study conducted by Harvard Business School concluded that people who offer apologies for things that aren't their fault appear more trustworthy and tend to be welcomed more warmly by strangers than those who don't.
Maybe that was how our empire was won? A vanguard of diffident apologisers popped up all over the world, sweatily begging pardon for the infernal heat/malaria/monsoon/tigers and the locals were so charmed that, before their oh-it-really-isn't-your-faults had been translated into the lovable invader's language, their raw materials had been lugged on to a gunboat which was already breasting the horizon.
The tests used by these Harvard researchers were less geopolitical and largely involved people asking to use strangers' mobile phones. For example, one was conducted at a rainswept railway station with a male actor asking to borrow people's phones, but prefacing the request with the phrase "I'm sorry about the rain!" half the time. When he didn't apologise for the weather, only 9 per cent lent him their phone but, when he did, it rose to nearly 50 per cent.
I am as delighted by the conclusions drawn as I am dubious at the anecdotal nature of the evidence. But the findings stand to reason – particularly as it's weird to ask to borrow someone's mobile without any preamble. If the control group were being asked for their phones after no more than an introductory "hello", then that alone could explain the standoffish response. The apology is a bit of humanising chat to make it clear to the phone-owners that they're not being mugged.
Still, in picking the phrase "I'm sorry about the rain!", I think the Americans reveal that they don't really understand the superfluous apology. No one, not even someone British, could possibly be so consumed by self-loathing that they think the weather is their fault (except, I suppose, a penitent CEO of a fossil fuel conglomerate), so this apology is not credible but jokey, maybe even flirty. I wonder if the male actor was attractive? That might have elevated his post-weather-apology strike-rate.
If I wanted to borrow someone's phone in the rain, I'd apologise for bothering them or for not having a functioning phone myself, or I'd simply say sorry without attaching a reason – just a general old-world post-imperial apology for existing. That, in my view, is the necessary preface to any conversation with a stranger if one doesn't wish to come across as a horrendous egotist.
But I'm glad that this research suggests that "sorry" is a persuasive word. Because the sort of person who sets great store by studies like this is also the sort who might think saying sorry is a sign of weakness – that we should be openly brash and unashamed in order to come across as alpha-predators in the business jungle; people who think there is a key to success and that it might be firm handshakes or loud, confident socks or using as many consonants as possible in job interviews. If these people start training themselves to say "sorry", instead of "stakeholders" or "going forward", then the world can only be improved.
Life goes much more smoothly when everyone's saying sorry. It's the second most important social lubricant and, unlike the first, it doesn't damage your liver. Particularly in large conurbations, saying sorry is the best verbal accompaniment to thousands of situations: when you bump into someone, when someone bumps into you, when you walk through a door at more or less the same time as another person, when asking for something in a shop, when taking anything to the till in a shop, when telling someone they've dropped something, when someone's holding a door open for you and you're a few yards away, when you're holding a door open for someone who's a few yards away.
Basically, if any remark you make doesn't already contain a "please" or a "thank you", shove a "sorry" in for good measure. In my ideal world, whenever two people met they would both say sorry. Just to clear the air.
And I'm not just an advocate of sorry as a conversational grace note – I also believe in the rhetorical power of the apology. When I was a bad student, this was one of the few things I learned. If I could apologise in the most abject terms for failing to hand in work or not turning up to something, there was very little the nice well-meaning academic I was serially disappointing could say other than "All right – don't do it again." If I could express exactly what was most annoying, ungrateful and unreasonable about my own behaviour before the person I'd angered, then the situation would be defused. You can't have an argument with someone who's saying exactly what you're thinking.
I remember, at some point in my childhood, my father berating my mother for saying sorry to a stranger during the insurance-details-exchanging epilogue to some minor prang she was involved in. He took the received view that saying sorry in that context was admitting liability and could have a detrimental effect on his no-claims bonus. If that's true, it's very uncivilised. In Britain, of all cultures, we surely cannot take the apology to mean anything more than a general wish that awkward moments should be avoided. Apologies should be encouraged and, in order to do so, we must divest them as far as possible of any long-term meaning.
The one thing that most discourages an apology, and is a growing phenomenon in the modern world, is calling for one. Once someone has publicly called for an apology, then it is robbed of all the disarming eloquence it has if given voluntarily. The apologiser gets no credit but instead undergoes the humiliation of being forced to submit. But that of course is what the people calling for such apologies very often want.
So I offer this advice to any children with irritating siblings: if you get accidentally hit by a ball, or tripped up, or otherwise injured by your brother or sister, don't say "Ow!" and leave room for a quick "sorry!" Instead, immediately shout "I demand an apology!" as a reflex. Do that, and you can be sure that, if a sorry is ever forthcoming, it'll be the sort that hurts not the sort that makes things better.