Apology Accepted: The Fine Art of Saying ‘I’m Sorry’

Saying something wrong or making a mistake can be embarrassing especially when done in public as Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor did last April after criticizing fellow Justice Kavanagh’s immigration policies. Happily, reversing the damage is simple: Apologize.

Keep it short and to the point. “People often try to explain, defend, or excuse their misfired remark, “University of Pittsburgh social psychologist Karina Schumann told Time Magazine. “The instinct is self-protective: they’re frantically trying to repair their image in the other person’s eyes.”

Accidentally revealing a major government secret may require a full explanation especially with the threat of a jail sentence. But a simple mistake can likely be undone with a single word. “Oops” or “Sorry” do nicely. Adding words only expands the episode.

Intensely personal errors are different. Asking a young lady who suddenly puts on a some extra weight if she’s pregnant when she isn’t may sound like a simple mistake, but Schumann notes that trying to laugh it off won’t do the trick. The problem here is that the person who made the mistake may not understand its “magnitude gap,” the difference between the harm seen by the one who got it wrong and the hurt experienced by the object of the error. Without a sufficiently satisfying apology, the object of the remark may wonder why the speaker could not see how much their words hurt. In some circumstances that might even be enough to end a relationship.

According to psychologist Jennifer Thomas, co-author of The 5 Apology Languages: The Secret to Healthy Relationship, for the conscientious and ever so slightly guilty among us even the hint of such a breakup can trigger a serious verbal flood. The temptation, she says, is to rehearse the whole story and punctuate it at every point with a defensive response such as “I was only joking” and “I didn’t mean it that way.” The aim, of course, is to deflect blame and minimize discomfort by suggesting the offended person is over-sensitive. Thomas has a more direct approach. She endorses the tried and true “Sorry,” or, if the problem was an email, “I shouldn’t have sent that.”

And then stop. One sincere apology is generally enough. “The more you apologize, the more it’s about you,” says Lizzie Post, the great-great granddaughter of Emily Post, the American author whose book “Etiquette,” published in 1922, made her a long-time leading authority on social manners and conduct. (For those who need to know the new, an up-to-date Centennial edition is available on Amazon.) Nonetheless, while perfect words should settle the matter, a seriously embarrassing erroneous remark may take a while to settle. In the end, an apology offers a choice not a deadline. “The timing of any forgiveness,” explains psychologist Thomas, “should stay wholly in the hands of the person who was hurt.”

After which comes afterwards. No one gets through life without making mistakes, and most do not require a lifetime of self-flagellation. The next time apologizer and apologized-to meet, if the apology was sincere and the other person seems to have accepted it as such, move on with the party. After all, as the British poet Alexander Pope wrote way back 350 years ago in a poem appropriately titled “An Essay on Criticism”: “To err is human and to forgive divine.” Or impressively human which Pope wrote as “humane,” an earlier spelling which definitely works.