So Sorry!

Lift Your Language

A while ago, I received a message that said:

Sorry for the ... (major mess-up and service failure, essentially). It was due to circumstances entirely outside our control.

Apart from the fact it came from a utilities provider and any kind of apology is rare, this one sounded like a contradiction. Can you see why?

When reading or writing ‘sorry for’ and ‘sorry about’, most people interpret them as very much the same. There is a subtle difference, though, which might be important in some cases.