Apolg* (for Apolog*)

There are good apologies and bad apologies, and many offenders tend to fall a bit short of the ideal; they simply don't cop to nearly enough. Then there are those who would appear to admit too much. Prison informant to inmate convicted of spousal murder: "I said, hey man, I apologize about your wife. And he goes, oh no, I'm glad the bitch is dead." Whereas "I'm sorry" and "I apologize" are pretty much the same thing when prompted by personal guilt, similar phrases can often express widely divergent meanings. "I'm so sorry [I did that]" is altogether different from "I'm so sorry [to hear that]." And "I feel sorry for you" is clearly not the way to put it when conveying your condolences, but works wonderfully well when you want to be withering. I'm sorry to say there were a dozen of these typos in OhioLINK today, and 131 in WorldCat, but I won't be issuing any apologies for it.

(An apology to the aboriginal people of Australia, as citizens celebrate Australia Day, photo by Spud Murphy, 26 January 2008, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid