Hacker News Reader

Comment by jessriedel | Hacker News Reader

1. It says that an apology is not of itself an admission of guilt. But it doesn't say that an apology can't be used as one piece of evidence of negligence/wrong-doing.

2. This document conflates negligent/avoidable mistakes with situations where "there has been an unintended or unexpected event" and "includes recognised complications referred to in the consent process". In the latter cases, "I'm sorry" is an expression of sympathy, not a true apology.

3. These sort of apologies are required by statute. How meaningful can they be?

View on HN

Is saying "I'm sorry" an admission of guilt somehow? Genuinely interested.

I read somewhere that in Canada they passed a law that saying sorry in case of car accident does not mean you are at fault for that accident.

Edit: found in this same thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14749389

Similar in UK. Insurers tell you never to say sorry for a car accident.

Opposite in Canada, you "can" say sorry, and it can not be used as admission of guilt or fault.

Yes. It does.

Or it is insincere.

Saying "im sorry" or never saying "im sorry" has expansive meanings and "sides"-

--- "My favorite mug is broken."

"Im sorry."

"Did you break it?"

"No."

"Then why apologize??!!!"

("I feel bad" is a better response)

I was reared in an "im sorry" said often environment. It was used to placate and move past someone's issue. A phrase that was never meant but effective.

I work now with a man that will always say (after hearing someone say im sorry), "Never say you're sorry. Its a sign of weakness." where i say im sorry to make others feel comfortable and to relate to complainers.

A sibling had and will never say she is sorry. It is like a commandment. Thou shall not ever apologize.

I do an im sorry test when i meet someone. Do they ever say that phrase?

There is no real simple answer "does it mean guilt" but my decades of experience say "Yes" more than "no"

This probably comes back to what part of the context is left unsaid. If someone's favorite mug is broken, you are trying to convey something like: "I'm sorry (to hear that)" But an apology obviously has the meaning of : "I'm sorry (for what I did that made this happen)"

Being explicit about it could help, but I agree my default inclination is also to assume it's an apology.

More specifically, in addition to remorse for one's actions, 'sorry' indicates you're grieved over a situation in general. So, if somebody's favorite mug is broken and you say, "I'm sorry" you're indicating the state of their mug grieves you.

(Grieves might be a bit heavy of a word to use, so saddened works too—the concept is the same.)

In the UK a common response on learning of a bereavement or some other major life setback is to say "I'm sorry" or "I'm so sorry."

Obviously this doesn't imply guilt.

If your most recent code breaks the company website, the correct response is probably "I'm on it - ETA of <x> mins/hours."

You could argue that an apology is redundant, although a post-mortem may be useful.

It's a difficult cultural issue, because it depends how avoidable show-stopper problems are.

The law doesn't fully distinguish between negligence caused by personal error; negligence caused by stress, distraction, or overwork; trivial error which may be magnified because of circumstances or other contributory factors; basic incompetence of one individual; basic incompetence of one or more other individuals which ends up being the problem of someone who isn't directly responsible (e.g. a site crashes because of an ancient bug buried in ancient code); and a series of extremely unlikely but unfortunate events.

I think the word's best definition is as an expression of regret rather than repentance; it's probably clearer to most that regret isn't necessarily an admission of wrongdoing, nor even a feeling about one's own actions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com