Improve your Vocabulary: Stop saying SORRY!

I'm so sorry, it's all my fault, mea culpa.

Oh my gosh.

Hi, James from EngVid.

I want to do a video to help you with a word that is so ubiquitous, I gave you a nice vocabulary

word there.

It's everywhere.

People do it, especially in Canada, like "Oops, sorry about that, sorry, sorry", to apologize.

And then we use it to apologize, but the problem is this.

You don't always have to apologize, what?

And sometimes an apology isn't strong enough for what you want to say.

So this lesson is to help you stop saying sorry in the way that people throw it out,

and it loses its power, and that's important because it's a great word to use when it's

used properly.

But I'm going to teach you how to use it, actually, I'm going to teach you other things

to use so you can still use sorry, even though I said stop using it, but you'll have better

alternatives to let people know exactly what you want to communicate.

Cool?

Let's go to the board.

And E's crying, and I just want to clean that up a little bit.

There, E. Okay?

Alright, let's go to the board.

So, why should you stop saying sorry?

Well, let's start off with, first of all, sorry is a great word, and it means that I

recognize that I have done something wrong, and that's very important.

There are people out there who can't say sorry because they feel it's weakness, but really,

when you're saying sorry, you've done something wrong, and as a human being, you want to improve,

so it's a good thing to say, "Hey, I'm sorry.

I messed up.

I want to learn how to improve.

Help me."

Cool?

But sometimes, you don't need to say sorry, you don't need to apologize, it's just you

need to excuse yourself because it's not something that's terrible that you've done, and other

times when you say you're sorry, it's because it's really heartfelt, and that word won't

really get that message across, and if - whether you're a native speaker or a student learning

English, this lesson will help you bridge the gap to communicate much more effectively

a powerful idea that if not you've done something wrong, you're - you feel badly that something

has happened to someone you like or love.

Let's go to the board, shall we?

Alright, so, sorry, it's a great word, it means to recognize that I've done something

wrong.

We've got that.

Let's talk about a light mistake, you know, a light mistake, yeah, because sometimes you

mean you're - whoops, can't do that, I just did it, I said whoops, whoops, yeah, the cap

wasn't on, I spilled some water, whoops, it's water.

In about five hours, I'm not even going to touch this, it's going to disappear, you will

not see the water, it will be gone because the sun or the light will dry it up, whoops.

When you break something or you drop something, you can say whoops, water's not important.

Would I say this if I dropped wine on a - red wine on a white carpet?

No, that's not a whoops, okay?

But also, you know, let's say you drop something by saying whoops, you don't have to say sorry,

sorry for what?

What did you do wrong, right?

That's that one.

The next one is, my bad, you made a mistake.

You know, the capital of Canada is Toronto, oh, my bad, it's Ottawa, what are you going

to apologize for?

You made a mistake.

This is not something that you need to apologize because it's a terrible thing, it's just a

little deal.

These are light mistakes, you don't need to say the word sorry.

Sure, you can say, sorry I dropped water on your carpet, or sorry I made a mistake in

saying that Ottawa was not the - you know, Toronto was the capital of Canada, but nobody

really cares that much, it's just boom.

Insignificant, move on.

These literally tell the other person it's not a big deal, don't worry about it, but

I made a bit of a mistake, and that's cool.

Next, sorry about that is similar to my bad.

You're saying my fault, like, sorry about that, because maybe you interrupted someone.

They were talking, I did it, and you came in, oh, sorry about that, I interrupted you,

I didn't mean to, please start again.

I'm not trying to be rude, I did it, I wasn't thinking, maybe I was excited, so then I kind

of jumped in there, and I say sorry about that, because I realized I made a mistake.

Sorry isn't necessary, but we do say sorry about that to say what I just did.

It's still light, these are light, so you've got three light ones you can use.

Now, let's get into the territory of where sorry actually sits, where you have - you've

recognized you've done something wrong, alright, and it's not just a whoops, I dropped water

on a plastic floor that will dry.

We're going to come here, okay?

Now, when we do this one, I'm going to start with excuse me.

Excuse me has three meanings.

One is a social no-no, where you say, oops, sorry.

So, for instance, I'm talking to you about - excuse me, oh, geez, excuse me.

Yeah, it's funny, because excuse me sometimes, I mean, it's like, okay, I did something that's

socially - like, passing gas is not really socially acceptable when everyone's drinking

wine in a circle, and there's a - you say, excuse me, I had beans last night, ooh, great

chili, right on the stomach, excuse me, okay?

You know what I need to say?

You can say sorry, but it's not like you killed anybody, but it gets across, like, I'm sorry,

I didn't want to do that.

So, that's a social no-no.

How about this one?

Let me go.

Like, let me go.

If you're sitting at a dinner table, and your phone rings, and, you know, a doctor's calling

about your wife or something, I don't know, you got an appointment you have to go to,

you might get up and go, please, excuse me, I have to leave, I've got an appointment that

I have to go to.

Why do you have to say you're sorry, like, I don't - I just want to do this, I don't

know how this happened.

No, man, it's just, please excuse me, I have another appointment I have to go to.

Yes, I don't really think I did something wrong, but I had something preplanned, and

I have to cut my visit with you short.

Please excuse me, right?

That's okay.

We also use it in the same thing, to interrupt.

I'm talking, you're talking, and maybe you're saying something that's full of - no, let's

not say that.

That would be rude, and I don't want to have to apologize here, but maybe, maybe you're

saying something, and it's wrong, and it's like you're saying, so, Toronto is like the

capital of Canada, yeah, and I go, oh, no, excuse me, that's not quite right.

I'm going to say that to interrupt you before you say something else that's probably even

more wrong, right?

I'm like, no, excuse me, I think, actually, Ottawa is the capital, right?

You might go, my bad, dude, my bad, right?

So when we're going to interrupt a conversation, we say, excuse me, right?

Or two people are talking.

If you're at a restaurant in North America, Australia, da-da-da-da, you may have a waiter

come up and go, excuse me, how was the meal?

Because they're saying, I realize I'm interrupting your meal, but I want to check up on you.

They're not doing something bad, right?

Now, excuse me and pardon me have a similarity, which is going to be here, I'll come back

to, but when we say pardon me, you're asking for forgiveness.

Pardon me.

Maybe you bump into someone, pardon me, sorry about that, right?

So you use both of them.

I'm very sorry I bumped into you, because maybe you're really big, but I say, pardon

me.

Maybe I want to go past, you're standing talking to a friend, I go, pardon me, because I want

to go by you, right?

This is to excuse yourself, give yourself the ability to do something, because you're

sort of apologizing first, that you're going to do something that will disturb another

person.

Cool?

Now, interestingly enough, excuse me and pardon me can be said when you want someone to repeat

what they said.

So, if someone's talking, you don't quite hear it, you go, oh, excuse me, what was that?

It's a way of saying sorry.

Excuse me, what did you say?

Pardon me, I missed that.

Now, here's a little bonus for you.

Tone is important.

If someone says, excuse me, that's not, I'm sorry I didn't hear you, I heard you.

I am not happy with what you said.

And if you hear British people, they go, pardon me, and it's like, they're not asking for

an excuse.

They're like, you should be sorry for what you just said, I need you to say it again

to my face while I'm standing here, right?

So listen for the tone.

If someone's like, excuse me, I didn't hear that, could you repeat that, professor?

Right, I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention for some reason.

But if the professor goes, excuse me, you weren't paying attention, and the most important

lesson I put out today, right, he's not asking for sorry, he's saying you should excuse yourself

for this ignorance, you know, like rudeness, right, or not knowing better.

So, this is also both could be said to repeat what they were saying.

Now, let's go back to, I said sorry is to say you made a mistake and you know it, but

sometimes it's more serious than that.

So, this is for like serious mistakes.

You've done something, oh, sorry isn't going to cut it, right?

Your best friend has a beautiful wife.

You decide you need to be with that wife.

Their relationship breaks up.

You can't say, I'm sorry I broke up your relationship and took your wife, I don't think so.

No, you need to come to that person's house and go, I want to apologize to you for what

I have done.

It was a terrible, awful thing and I should never have done it.

Or I want to apologize, this for, for breaking up your relationship and having your children

shipped off to a foreign country.

I was a bad, bad human being.

Sorry won't cut it.

This is a serious mistake.

It means I regret, it's like I am sorry for doing this action, I regret doing what I did,

it was bad.

So, I apologize.

This one is another one, please forgive me, let me go.

Forgiveness, it means to, I'm going to say absolve, take away any bad feelings you have

on me, right?

So, you want to forgive me for doing something.

I ask for your forgiveness because I have done something so badly, it's like I'm going,

please, I need you to forgive me for this action I have done, alright?

This is also strong.

These are very strong, so you've done something serious here.

Funny thing about please forgive me, some people are very cheeky.

What we mean by cheeky is a little bit rude.

They'll say, you'll be having a conversation and maybe you're talking about, I don't know,

I don't know, it could be women's rights or it could be politics or something, and this

person will come up in the middle of your conversation and go, please forgive me, and

you're thinking they're apologizing because they haven't said anything, you're like, well,

you haven't said anything.

It's like, yes, well, I know what I'm going to say and I need to say forgive me first

because I'm about to say something to make you upset.

Please forgive me, but you're totally wrong, nothing you've said has been correct, please

shut up, and that's why they would start with please forgive me.

So, sometimes it's to ask for forgiveness and sometimes if you are talking and someone

says, dear boy, please forgive me, oh, it's not going to be a pleasant conversation, okay?

Now, do you remember I made the silly joke about someone taking your wife or a woman

taking someone's husband?

This doesn't have to be that, but I want to make amends.

It means you have done something, you have a relationship with somebody and you have

done something so bad this person has decided they don't want to know you, talk to you,

or anything.

I don't know what you did.

Maybe you stole their donkey, I don't know what you did, okay?

You did something to upset them that they decided I don't want to be your friend.

Maybe you stole money from them, you lied to them, you hit them, I don't know.

You took their favorite Star Wars toy, you know, the one with the Stormtrooper with the

beady eyes or the blue eyes with the laser light, you took it, you took it and you hid

it under your bed and you lied, you never gave it back, and they asked you time and

time again and you said you didn't have - sorry, oh, Jesus, yeah, kind of - he's got to make

amends for that, I'll never forgive him.

But that's my point, see, someone does something so deep it's in there, it hurts, you know

what I'm saying?

It hurts.

So, it's a bad joke.

So you want to make amends, you need to repair a relationship, you have to - you're saying

whatever I did was bad, I know I did that, how do I fix this?

Red means blood.

I don't know when you're watching this video, it could be in the year 2020, it could be

in the year 2029 or 2030, but this particular time in history, we're going through an interesting

period where everybody is offended by everything.

So this statement is very interesting, because when somebody says - and I'm going to tell

you what the other one to this one is, I gave you the past tense - if I say to you I didn't

mean to offend you, it means I said something and I hurt your feelings, but I didn't mean

to do this.

I just said it and maybe I wasn't thinking, maybe I was drinking a little bit too much,

I don't know what the situation was, or I didn't know enough about the subject before

I started talking about it, and it upset you.

Maybe you have very good reason to be upset.

Then I will say I didn't mean to offend you.

I really, really want to say Will Smith right now, but I'm not going to, okay?

I'm not going to say it, because this will be - in time people will go, "Why did he say

that?"

And you'll go, "Go back, 2021, '22, you'll understand."

Okay, "I didn't mean to offend you" means I've said something to upset you, and I really

didn't mean offense by it.

Yeah, you're wondering why did he stop, did he have a brain, something go wrong with his

brain?

Okay.

If somebody says, "I don't mean to offend", oh baby, they do.

You ever get in a conversation where someone's like, "Well, excuse me, I don't want to

offend you", what they're saying is, "I'm going to offend you, I'm looking forward to

it, sit down and buckle up, buttercup, I've got some stuff to say that you don't want

to hear."

So, be very careful.

"I didn't mean to offend" means honestly, and I said didn't, so please get this right.

"I didn't mean to offend" is I seriously said something that I would never have said if

it would have upset you.

But if someone says, "I don't want to offend you", they do want to offend you.

They're just warming you up, because they've kind of said sorry already, so because I've

said sorry, I can say what I want.

Now, you can take away what you want from that, meaning you might be the person who

goes, "I've got a few people to talk to", or you might say, "Oh, I have a few people

to talk to, I should never have said that stuff."

Cool?

All right.

Now, I've given you three different ways to use - well, not to use sorry - three different

ways to use other phrases or words that can actually be used in a better way than sorry,

because they give or convey a message that lets people understand really what you want

to say.

Now, we're going to come back, as you know, I've got a little quiz for you, and I've got

some really good - well, something I find is important, because I find even native speakers

don't use these words, and they should - a way to say sorry in a special circumstance.

You ready?

And we're back.

I'm sorry it took so long.

Will you ever excuse me on that?

Anyway, sorry.

Let's go to the board, I'm going to do a quick quiz, then we're going to do a bonus, and

after we do the bonus, then I'm going to give you your homework for the day.

You ready?

All right.

So, you're at a restaurant, okay, it's really noisy.

You didn't hear what the waiter said to you.

What is the best response to let the waiter know you didn't hear them?

Pardon me, or I apologize.

Yeah, pardon me.

Remember we said excuse me or pardon me can be said to have someone repeat what they said?

Yeah?

And what are you apologizing for?

You didn't do anything wrong, you just didn't hear them, so pardon me is the best response.

Number two, you slept with your best friend's husband.

What is the appropriate response?

Whoops.

Or I want to make amends.

What do you think?

This shouldn't take that long.

Okay, clearly it's I want to make amends because you probably have broken the relationship,

you've broken their trust.

If you say whoops, you might be going to the morgue.

Morgue is the place they take the dead people after they kill you, because you've done two

things wrong now, right?

Okay.

Number three, what do you say to someone that has had a death in the family, okay?

What do you say?

I didn't mean to offend, or my condolences.

My condolences.

Now, this is an interesting one, I want to give a quick aside, that means say something

to add to the information.

Many English native speakers have a difficulty with this particular thing.

I've got a couple on the board I'm going to show you later on to expand on the idea of

death.

It's not a great topic, people don't like talking about it, but you want to have more

than one way of saying it, because so many people say the same thing the same way, like

"sorry", that it's not to make you stand out, but it's to have someone maybe feel more of

what you wanted them to feel, that there's a regret, okay, and you know they're missing

something.

So, keep this one in mind, we're going to come back to it, okay?

Next, you spill water on a plastic floor by accident, okay?

Water, plastic, accident.

Which do you think is going to be, "whoops" or "my apologies"?

Yeah, "whoops" is appropriate here.

You can say "whoops", like "whoops, it's plastic, nothing's going to happen, it's plastic, it

was an accident and it's water, you can't even see it unless, whoops, you fall."

Okay, remember we said dropping, if you slide in the water, you might go "whoopsie-daisies",

okay?

All right, so, that's "my apologies", sorry, "whoops".

And now, number five, you are two hours late for a work meeting that you are responsible

for.

All right, your boss is there, another company is there, they're all waiting for you, okay?

You walk in and what are you going to say to all of those folks that have been sitting

there for two hours waiting for you?

Yeah, "please forgive me, let me go", "please forgive me, you have screwed up big time".

This is a company meeting, you're responsible, you should be there.

"Whoops, my bad", doesn't quite count it, doesn't cut it, "my bad, I was wrong, sorry

for making you all wait", no, no, no, no.

They will be more than a little bit upset and you might need a new job.

You have to start off with "please forgive me, the airplane was late, the TTC broke down"

or something, "my car wasn't working", you need a big excuse, you need to start with

this one.

All right.

So, I figured you got that and I'm hoping you learn from this that "sorry" isn't just

the - isn't the only thing you can say in a bad situation.

And then we've worked on it that you've got different ways of approaching it.

Now, to help you with the thing I thought was very important, because I've noticed when

people had died and I'd used it and I might have said the same thing over and over and

then many people would say it, "thank you Facebook for making me become aware of this

situation".

There are a couple of ways, I'm going to give you three, there are many more that these

will allow you to - when I say "stand out" to let - maybe stand out a different message

to someone, because in a time of grief, that means great sadness, sometimes things - people

don't catch information and sometimes it's got to stand out for them to register, to

understand and go "oh my gosh, thank you", okay?

My condolences, that means I'm very, very sorry for what has happened.

These ones are only used for death, so please, if someone loses their job, don't say "my

condolences, you lost your job", it's not appropriate, that's why I took it separately

and from the rest, so you know exactly when you're going to use this.

Now, I'm sorry to hear about somebody's passing, John's passing, Bobby's passing, it means

somebody has died, when passing we mean passed from life to death, so somebody has passed

away, they have died, they're no longer alive, so I am sorry to hear about John's passing,

Bobby's passing, Karen's passing, yeah, Karen should pass.

Mm-hmm, definitely Karen should pass, joking.

Okay.

Now, I'm sorry for your loss, because we're saying when someone has died, you've lost

some love in your life, somebody you cared about and who cared about you, and we're very

sorry for that.

You can even say "I'm very sorry for your loss", right?

So sorry itself is not strong enough, now we have to add more so people get the feeling

there's more emotion in this, cool?

All right, so this is a - not that I'm having people die all over the place, but I think

it's important to share this kind of knowledge that helps you really convey your emotions,

this is communication after all.

Now, I don't usually do this, but this was so cool, let me say it again, this was so

cool I wanted to add it, all right?

Because a lot of times people say sorry, I think Bieber had a song like "I'm sorry",

and that's all they say, but a real apology, when you're really sorry about something,

it's not just bumping into someone or dropping water, there are actually three parts, and

we should recognize this, right?

A real apology, or when you say sorry, there are three parts to it, first, apologize, "I'm

sorry, please excuse me, I did not mean to do what I did, I wasn't trying to offend."

Second, take responsibility, "I did this, it was me, I made this mistake."

And then third, make amends, "How do I fix it?"

That's a real apology, so when you're saying sorry, if you're not really putting these

three things together, I don't know how sorry you really are, right?

Remember, it's like you made a mistake?

If you know it, own up to it, take that responsibility, apologize, and then ask how to fix it.

That's what the wise people do.

All right, so finally, we got to do some homework, because it wouldn't be a class, a James class,

if you didn't get homework.

So I want you to think of a time you made a mistake, which phrase would you use to say

instead of sorry?

Because now you've got like nine of them, ten, choose, like you can kind of go, "Well,

it wasn't such a big deal", I could say, "Whoops", I could say, "My bad", right, or you could

say, "I'm sorry about that", or you could say something more like, "Please, I need to

make amends", or what have you, you've got like lots of tools now.

Now here's an example of one you could use, like, and you know what, in the comments,

write it out.

A friend has died, what would you say?

I gave you three big ones on that.

You could also be on the subway, right, or metro, and you pass gas in a crowded room,

there's people sitting down while you're standing up and you pass gas, what would you

say?

"Whoops", you know, "My bad", "Sorry", "My bad", I don't know, what would you say to

these people, right?

They're all sitting there going, "Ugh", I don't know.

Okay, so this is something you can work on, think about that, so if you can't think of

a time you've done something, think of a situation and put it in the comments.

We love it on Facebook, on engVid, and on YouTube, we love reading it and seeing what

you guys do, what situations you'll be in, and perhaps that will help us think of a video

that we could give to you that would help you in other situations, cool?

Anyway, I've got to get going, but before I go, I've got a quote, okay, and the quote

I have here, I like this one a lot, this is by Benjamin Franklin, an important American

statesman, an inventor, and he said, "Never ruin an apology with an excuse", right, because

what happens is, a lot of times people will say, "I'm sorry, but it was raining outside,

that's why I didn't do it."

Well, that's not an apology anymore, we go back to here, right, make amends, take responsibility

for it, so he was just saying, if you make an excuse after you apologize, it's not really

an apology, but I know you better than that, I know you wouldn't do something like that,

so what I would like you to do, oh, by the way, when you do this, because this is a good

one and I think an important lesson, let's say it's a million points, a million points

for each and every time you put a statement down and what happened and what phrase would

you use, cool?

And I've noticed a lot of people are active and they do give out the points, so, you know,

put something down there.

Anyway, where I want you to go is to www.ing, as in English, vid as in video.com, where

there will be a quiz with this, so you can get actually better or more practice with

using these new terms I've given you for sorry, is that cool?

Anyway, please excuse me, I have to get going.

Hope you enjoyed the video and always, thank you, I appreciate it, it's because you come

and watch these videos that I keep making them and hopefully bringing some wisdom, knowledge,

helping you out in some way.

Anyway, have a good one, talk to you soon.