The English have long been noted for an almost pathological devotion to reserve, manners and self-deprecation. Which is something one can accept quite honestly, they seem like reasonable attributes to adopt to me.
The one area that puzzles me the most though, is why do we apologise so much/ is it a cultural hold-over that we inherently feel we mus apologise for the excesses of former generations? One would be inclined to believe not. In fact you could more reasonably assert that this has more to do with the aforementioned reserve and manners.
Even if we know something is the other person's fault we apologise. Personal experience has led to a variety of experiences pertaining to this. Ranging from both parties apologising or inadvertently bumping into each other when nobody is at fault, to my own immediate reaction of 'soory' which bubbles up instinctively when someone else is at fault. In the later instance, one may, for example, have been crashed into by a trolley weilding buffoon who has no spatial awareness in supermarket aisles and leaves you with a haematoma the size of a cricket ball. This does not natter however when you apologise to each other.
HOWEVER, should you apologise for something which is clearly the other person's fault and get no response then ones blood begins to boil. Yet reticence precludes further action. Surely this is too frustrating a way to carry on? Well, no actually, no matter how frustrated one gets, as an English person the instinct is to just keep on apologising regardless of lack of personal blame.
Awfully sorry about that old bean.
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