so terribly sorry to bother you, but ENGLAND!

29.april.05: i am convinced that the word “sorry” is the national slogan. in fact, it would do well in a tourist commercial. “Come to England! Sorry for the exclamation point, didn’t mean to bother you.”

i’ve found that i have to struggle to return to my flat american way of saying SAR-ee. instead i’ve adapted the john cleese/sir lancelot way of apologising.

“but you’ve killed 40 persons!”

“ah yes! terribly sorry. sorry!”

SORE-ee.

it didn’t occur to me that monty python was playing a bit of british social commentary in that scene of the holy grail. it’s still funny in america, but once you hear how many times a day a british person says the word, it dawns on you how lost in translation some of those very subtle jokes can be.

granted, most of those times are used in the “sorry-i-didn’t-hear-you-can-you-repeat-that” kind of way. they just sum it up into one precious little practical word.

sore-ee.