I recently had a thought. In the English language we don't really have a word to differentiate "I'm sorry," and "I'm sorry."
If I do something that has an unintended consequence (i.e. an accident/unintentional transgression) I would still apologize. If I hurt your feelings by something I said, but I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, I might apologize. If I see that you're hurting and I want you not to hurt, I might say the same thing.
But if I did something wrong, on purpose, like I yelled at you for no good reason. I would also say, "I'm sorry."
Guy Winch Ph. D. wrote a book called, Emotional First Aid, in which he outlined 5 ingredients to a successful apology . I've also heard others.
Could we differentiate between, "I'm sorry" (transgressive apology) and "I'm sorry" (repentant apology)? Do we need to? Would it change anything if we did? Do other languages? What do you think?
