SORRY! Why Canadians say “sorry” so much

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Did you know that?

Two things I'm going to let you know right away that I'm Canadian.

The first one being my accent.

The way that Canadians say "sorry", one of our favourite words, and I didn't know this

We say "sore", like ow, ow, ow, that's sore,

sorry, whereas our friends in America say

That's going to depend on what state they're

from in America, too, but there is quite the

regional differentiation between Canadian "sorry" and American "sari".

Are you wearing some native clothes from India over there?

No, it's "sori".

And Canadians are famous for saying this.

Apparently, apparently we say this nine times

a day, and Olag, this lesson is for you because

you're the one that told me about this.

How are you doing?

How are you doing?

Why do we say it?

There are circumstances when we definitely shouldn't say it.

We should say other words, like "pardon" or "excuse me", but Canadians have this thing

of saying "sori".

So, oh, sorry, oh, sorry, it's hot in here, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Why do we say it?

We say it because we're super polite.

Yeah, apparently Canadians are known to be polite.

Maybe that's because we're saying "sori" all the time.

But when you look at the roots of it, it's more to defuse conflict.

What does that mean?

So...

And this happens to me a lot because I'm kind

of a person that likes to walk quickly and

get things done.

If I'm at a supermarket or, god forbid, I'm

in a mall-I hate those things-and I'm walking

and there's someone in front of me that is in my way, I usually...

I usually go, "Hey, man, I'm sorry."

I usually will just walk because people annoy me.

But the funny thing is that if I'm walking this

way and I hit the person, not intentionally,

the other person will apologize to me and say sorry, and I'm like, "It's your fault

But it was my fault.

So, I don't know, defuse conflict.

So usually the person who didn't do anything wrong says sorry.

Oh, this is crazy.

So you're on a crowded bus or a crowded subway

and you have a backpack, and your backpack

hits the other person.

I've done this, everyone's done this.

The other person who got hit by the backpack will apologize to your backpack.

"Oh, sorry, backpack."

It should be the person that hit you should say, "Oh, I'm sorry."

Everyone's so sorry about everything.

It's just horrible how sorry we are.

There's a law passed, not getting into the details of it, but there was some...

Something in some law somewhere saying that sorry does not actually mean that you are

at fault for it.

It's just acknowledging, which our country is famous for.

"Oh, I'm sorry that happened."

You're just acknowledging that it happened.

You're not saying like, "Oh, I did it, it's my

fault", but it's a way to defuse the situation

and say, "Yeah, sorry."

So you've got to watch out for this one.

This is a first kind of incident where I noticed this.

So, I have a lot of students that obviously I'm teaching them English, and they would

say things when they didn't understand, like,

"Pardon", I'm like, "Oh, that sounds weird.

Why are they saying that?" or "What?"

Now, this is crazy.

When you ask someone to repeat something and

you say, "What?", you have to be careful of

your intonation, because if you say, "What?", "Whoa, don't get mad at me."

So, intonation is very, very, very important.

And if you say it like this, the speaker might think you're a little stupid.

So, "pardon" is too formal.

"Pardon", "pardon me", sounds like you're British.

And "what" can be rude.

So, what do we do with Canadians?

We go, "Sorry?"

You must raise your voice as a question.

We do this to ask for clarification or to repeat information.

So, if someone says, "Hey, yesterday I went to the...

And I didn't see you."

Why are you apologizing?"

I'm not apologizing; I'm asking you for clarification.

This is how I've seen it used the most.

Number one, you smash into someone, they apologize to you.

Works with driving, too.

And two, we're asking for clarification.

Now, the thing that annoys me when I'm trying

to learn another language is because I use

"sorry" all the time, I think, "Pfft, I can just use 'sorry' in Portuguese or 'sorry'

in Spanish and it'll work the same way."

The words are very different.

And "excuse me" is what Canadians should be

saying about 42% of the time, because instead

of saying "excuse me", we say "sorry".

I'll give you some examples.

Acknowledge social awkwardness.

This is what I was telling you about being on a crowded bus or a subway, if your bag

hits someone or if you're standing...

Sitting beside someone and you, like, accidentally

touch them, oh my god, what have you done?

You've violated me.

Just accidentally.

Invading personal space.

We always apologize.

It's not a big deal.

I've just touched your foot with my foot.

I'm not, like, harassing you, nothing bad has happened.

We think, oh my god, it's horrid.

My foot touched the other person's foot.

"Excuse me" would work, or just say nothing and go, oh, it's crowded.

Interrupt the conversation.

Do this all the time.

Two people are talking, here's me.

I should say "excuse me", but I say "sorry".

Where's the bus stop?

It should be "excuse me, where's the bus stop", but we say "sorry".

So, hey, hold on.

Basically, Canadian English, it's easier, right?

Because instead of saying all these words, we just say "sorry".

The only word you ever need in Canadian English is "sorry", eh?

Next one, get someone's attention.

I did that at the beginning of the video, like, sorry, sorry, sorry, hello.

If you are in a restaurant and you would like

the server to come to your table, we don't

put up our hand.

Oh, that's so rude.

We don't sit there, like, oh, waving, because

they're like, what are you waving that for?

Do you know what we do?

You know what we say?

We say "sorry", and the person's like, oh, what's wrong?

How can I help you?

What's going on?

Or they ignore you, because restaurants are shit nowadays.

They're like, no.

Did you need something?

When we want to complain about something, so let's say I'm at the restaurant and I'm

like, sorry, my soup is cold.

Like, it was my fault, like, I brought ice cubes to the table and put this...

You should be sorry.

So, when we complain, we always start off with a "sorry".

It makes it polite to confuse...

Defuse conflict.

If I'm at a restaurant and I call the server over, I'm like, yo, my soup's cold.

They're going to do the same thing.

But we want to be polite about it.

We want to be like, oh, sorry, can you fix it?

Oh, come on, grow a pair.

So, we do this to make our complaints less severe.

Talk about bad situations.

This is another one that struck me heavily when I was a child.

At a funeral and someone says, I'm sorry your father died.

Did you kill him?

Why are you sorry?

And I never know what to say at funerals, ever.

I'm just all like...

Can I leave now?

Everyone's like, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

I'm like, give it up.

Stop saying sorry, people.

One of my favourites, the sarcasm or the sarcastic sorry.

You got to get the valley girl coming in with that one.

So, sarcasm means you're saying the opposite of what you want to say.

It's like telling lies, but doing it very well.

So, if someone's making a complaint and you really don't care, and they're like, sorry,

my soup is cold, they're like, sorry.

There's nothing we can do about it.

So, yeah, it's kind of like they don't care, but

they're just trying to be polite and they're...

You know they're not by their intonation.

Yeah, I can't help you.

We don't have any more of those.

You're not sorry.

You're not the person responsible for ordering the black curtains that I wanted.

Don't apologize to me.

To say, oh, you know, I almost said it, to say we don't have those in stock.

Come back next week.

I'm sorry that, you know, you've watched this

and stuff like that, but, you know, I'm sorry.

I hope that you've got, you know, some information

about coming to Canada and being Canadian.