945: I'm Sorry

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 23:02, 18 June 2016 by 162.158.60.23 (talk) (Explanation)
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I'm Sorry
You know I've always hated her.
Title text: You know I've always hated her.

Explanation

In many English speaking countries, including the US, when someone presents the other with bad news, they respond with a sympathetic "I'm sorry". That is different from the apologetic "I'm sorry" that a person would give for something that is their fault. Some people, however, choose to be pedantic and refuse to accept the phrase, since the other person isn't guilty of anything. This can be annoying to people who view it as a common phrase which should be accepted as a normal idiosyncrasy of the language.

As it says below the comic, Cueball switches his sympathetic "I'm sorry" when Megan, being pedantic, does not accept the "I'm sorry" because it was not his fault. Instead of agreeing with her, Cueball says "I know what I did...", implying that he DID, in fact, burn down her mother's house, an act which she would not expect.

At the title text, "You know I've always hated her." is an explanation for burning down the house, albeit an insufficient one. It is unlikely that he actually burned her house down, but rather is simply teaching Megan a lesson not to nitpick so much.

Transcript

[Megan and Cueball are standing next to each other having a conversation.]
Megan: My Mom's house burned down.
Cueball: Oh! I'm sorry!
Megan: Why? It's not your fault.
Cueball: It's nice of you to say that, but I know what I did.
It annoys me when people interpret an obviously sympathetic "I'm sorry" as an apology, so I've started responding by making it one.


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Discussion

That's kinda hard though, he can't be the cause of everything that ever goes wrong, can he? Davidy²²[talk] 09:03, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, not directly (at least not intentionally) however chaos theory suggests that he had some contribution even if he did not realize it (or at the vary least he could have taken some actions that would have 'randomly' stopped the event.) Yuriy206 (talk) 18:21, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
And the point is that he is annoyed by people deliberately mis-interpreting his condolences as an apology. 108.162.219.223 19:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Am I the only one who thinks it is that first "I'm sorry" that is weird and not the "Why? It wasn't your fault." part? I know a lot of people do it but that doesn't make it less weird. Tharkon (talk) 01:05, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

In regards to contexts such as the one portrayed in the comic, I always thought the phrase "I'm sorry" to be more accurately interpreted along the lines of "I'm sorry that X happened to you". It is a fairly commonplace expression, so I usually get a little irritated when someone responds in a fashion similar to how the person on the left in the comic responded. 108.162.237.124 03:14, 19 November 2014 (UTC) scht
I think it's weird that you think it's weird, considering that this usage is well-established in English. It's neither new nor rare nor arbitrary, so I don't understand why you find it weird. NoriMori (talk) 16:40, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Added title text by splitting a line in the explanation. Let's close this.173.245.56.152 21:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I always felt this confusion was a non-native speaker thing: in several other languages, the word "sorry" is exclusively used for excuses, and you'll need other phrases if you want to express you pity the other person. I have a habit of responding like Megan just because in my native language, that use of sorry really doesn't make shit sense and people still do it, and that habit clings on in English. Apparently native speakers also do this? 18:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this is a perfectly normal expression in English. NoriMori (talk) 16:40, 13 July 2021 (UTC)