Apologise like your mamma taught you
Amore recent addition to the Oxford Dictionary is the noun ‘‘nonapology’’. Its definition is ‘‘a statement that takes the form of an apology but does not constitute an acknowledgement of responsibility or regret for what has caused offense or upset’’.
We are all so accustomed to the nonapology that it barely registers any more but let me hail a new Kiwi leader among those who understand what a true apology looks like.
Bay Haika is a 55-year-old salvage worker from Christchurch who was caught drink-driving before Christmas. It was his fourth charge, and although it had been 19 years since his earlier convictions, the fourth could have resulted in a jail term.
He received various non-custodian punishments but no jail. Why? For one, the man knows how to apologise, just like your mamma should have told you to, unreservedly. An apology without an if or a but.
Haika took out a public notice in The Press with 77 words, all clearly his own, not written by a public relations fluffer, and punctuated with exclamation marks. Among them, ‘‘I would like to apologise … to the wider communities out there for driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. It’s just not worth it!! The harm you can cause to others and your own family/partners, to maim and/or worse cause death, whilst doing a stupid action! for an extra celebration drink or two.’’
Politicians, public figures and arrogant idiots take note.
An American linguistics professor Edwin Battistella, author of Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology, says the key is genuine remorse and contrition. It addresses the victim or victims.
The phony apologist uses language to distance themselves from the words or deeds that made the apology necessary in the first place.
Tony Veitch is the owner of possibly New Zealand’s most nauseating nonapology, with his crisis-crafted statement in May. On the surface, I guess, it appeared to be an apology to Kristin Dunne-Powell for assaulting her in 2006. Yet nowhere did he mention her name. He mentioned ‘‘sorry’’ once but that was for ‘‘impacting lives’’ and it read more like a selfabsorbed man who couldn’t believe this whole silly thing was being dragged up again. It wouldn’t have if a true apology had been forthcoming a decade earlier.
Now consider Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte. He lied about being robbed and having a gun pointed to his noggin in Rio and said he wanted to apologise for ‘‘not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning’’.
It would have scraped the hairline of sincerity if he’d straight up apologised for lying. His ‘‘but’’ moment was saying it was ‘‘traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country – with a language barrier’’.
A 2010 study from Canada looked at nuances between gender when it came to saying sorry. It showed men apologise less than women. Men reported fewer transgressions to apologise for. The study also suggested that men apologise less frequently than women because they have a higher threshold for what constitutes offensive behaviour. That might explain why John Key’s apology for repeatedly pulling a waitress’s pony tail was a couple of bottles of pinot noir when he realised she was ‘‘taking offence’’.
Perhaps true apologies take time. Thirty years after an Air New Zealand jet slammed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica, killing 257 people, the airline apologised to families ‘‘who did not receive the compassion and support they should have’’.
Australia didn’t apologise to the Stolen Generation of Indigenous Australians until 1998, something which didn’t stop until about 1970.
Good apologies heal, bad ones make things worse. Nice one Bay.