Sorry, eh?
Email for Purchase Info
One of the things I find so fascinating about travel is what you notice about your home country when you return. I'm expecting to notice and appreciate what's different in other countries, so the culture shock doesn't come as a surprise, but I am always unprepared for how much I notice how Canada differs from other places.
What do I notice most about Canada? People are so dang nice. Polite, friendly, just all around nice. Nowhere is this nore evident than our predisposition for saying "sorry". Someone bumps into you in the street? You both say sorry. Someone spills something? A spectating Canadian will say sorry. Friends around the globe have commented on my repeated "sorry-ing", to the point that I self deprecatingly suggest that Canadians have our passports revoked if we don't say sorry a minimum of 10 times per day.
But wait, it goes deeper than that, much deeper. Saying sorry is SUCH a Canadian habit that we literally—truly, you can't make this up—have a law on the books that saying sorry in a court of law is not a legal admission of guilt. Yes, if you say sorry in a Canadian courtroom, you are not admitting guilt. I find this terribly funny, naturally, but it also indicates that the Canadian "sorry" is not actually an apology as such. It is a commiseration, an expression of empathy, more than an actual apology. So to the rest of the world, Canadians run around apologizing for things that aren't their fault.
Sorry about that.
Comments