Word Stories: apologising

Steve Taylore-Knowles looks at the stories behind the English language.

According to the title of Elton John’s 1976 hit (well, it reached number 1 in the Netherlands), sorry seems to be the hardest word – although I know a number of Proficiency students who would disagree. Still, however hard it may be to swallow one’s pride and apologise, English offers a few different ways of doing it: sorry, excuse me, forgive me, pardon me and I apologise, to name a few.

Sorry is a native word, which in Old English was sarigh (distressed, sad, full of grief). It was formed on the root sar (bodily suffering, wound, a sore), which also gave us sore. Sorrow, which appears to be closely related, is actually from a different Old English word, sorh or sorgh. The use of sorry as a simple apology is relatively late and some of the earlier meanings, such as ‘wretched, worthless, poor’, still survive in phrases like a sorry excuse (which, despite appearances, doesn’t mean an apology).

Excuse comes into English through the familiar route of Latin via French. In Middle English it was escusen or excusen, from Old French escuser/excuser, from the Latin excusare, composed of the elements ex- (relieve from) and causa (accusation). The same prefix has the same meaning in exonerate, where -oner- represents Latin onus (burden).

Forgive is, as you might expect, for- plus give, the prefix corresponding to the Greek prefixes περι-, παρα- and προ-. Forgive has meant ‘grant’, as well as ‘pardon an offence’, although the former meaning is now obsolete. Pardon is actually directly analogous to forgive. It’s formed from Latin per- (through) plus donare (give), which gives us donation, donor and, perhaps less obviously, condone.

Apologise is, of course, from the Greek. The -ise represents –ιζειν, forming a verb on apology, which comes from απολογία (a speech in defence), consisting of από (away from) plus λογία (speaking). I hope my Greek readers will forgive me for explaining the obvious here, but it’s possible that one or two of my native English-speaking readers haven’t made the connection. I apologise on their behalf. Sorry.