Week 12: Crutch

                 In my circle of influence, composed of English professors, college peers, internet grammar knights, and my merciless know-it-all brother, a war on crutch words is afoot. This war, as far as I can tell, began while I was in high school. Connecting my thoughts in conversation has been an ongoing struggle, leading to a reliance on words such as “like” and “um” to bridge the silences between words that others may take as a queue to speak. Over time, as I have tried to stop using these cliché crutches, my crutch words have developed into crutch phrases – not to be confused with and certainly not as fun as catch phrases such as Spock’s infamous “Live long and prosper” or the Eleventh Doctor’s “Bowties are cool.”

                Though we may use a crutch word or phrase as if it were a catch phrase – appearing at predictable moments, maybe even capturing a certain mood of the moment – crutch words are a great annoyance and once I notice my own overuse of a word, the word nags at me every time it comes out of my mouth. My number one crutch word may not seem like one at all, but I assure you that for many of us it has become a crutch.

“Sorry” is a word that makes me flinch each time I say it. Perhaps my overuse of “sorry” can be blamed on my midwestern roots, as some believe this over-apologizing to be an aspect of being a Midwesterner or Canadians, and I’m inclined to agree. In Michigan, I hear sorry everywhere. Bumping into someone at the grocery store? “Ope, sorry!” Knocked a wet floor sign down at the gas station? “I’m sorry.” Forgot to order your daughter a Tropical Sprite instead of the dreaded regular (lame-o) Sprite? “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie.”

There are times that we should and need to apologize. We are accustomed to hearing apologies for every inconvenience, though, leading us to expect an apology even when we should not get one or when saying something else is more appropriate. Emma of mmmEnglish, an English language tutor on YouTube, has gone so far as to make a video addressing the overuse of sorry and provides suggestions for varying your apologies in a manner appropriate to the situation.

This overuse has also been addressed by people such as Linked In's Carrie Maslen. "Sorry" makes an appearance on Maslen's list of words and phrases to avoid. Maslen suggests that we identify the words we overuse and then work to replace or omit them. As anyone who has tried to stop using crutch words, or any other habit, will know, stopping is often easier said than done.

I work in a restaurant that is constantly changing the items we carry, often to the dismay of our customers. A coworker of mine had to deliver the bad news to a customer that her favorite sandwich was discontinued.  My coworker politely told her, “Unfortunately, we don’t carry the roast beef anymore. Would you like to try the shaved steak?” The customer agreed to the steak but seemed annoyed throughout the rest of the transaction, insisting on answers to questions about why the roast beef was no longer carried - answers that we often do not have because these decisions occur so far up the chain. At the end, as I was cashing her out at the register, she complained to me that my coworker was rude and “did not even say sorry.” As a manager, I would say my coworker handled the transaction very well by informing the guest that we no longer carried her prefered item and by offering an alternative. As someone who is nonconfrontational, I was uncomfortable asserting myself. Who am I to tell her she does not need an apology? It's just my opinion and if I need to apologize to make her happy, so be it. Uncomfortable, I apologized for him and moved the order along as quickly as I could. 

After this interaction, I felt cheated. This woman that I did not wrong got an apology out of me because in customer service, most of what I have learned to do is apologize for honest mistakes, others' mistakes, or decisions that are out of my hands - much like the decisions to remove roast beef from the menu. I genuinely felt that she got something from me that I did not personally owe her and it left me wondering if simply hearing the word “sorry” is what we are looking for. Does it matter if we do not mean it?

                I feel a tinge of guilt on occasion when mediating the inevitable frustrations that occur when my partner’s younger siblings and his son are playing together. They are 9, 11, and 13 years old and naturally emotional. As soon as one of them gets their way one too many times or someone says something mean and they come crying. We guide them through resolving the situation and sometimes we must tell them to apologize because they get so caught up in arguing over who started it. Sometimes, the child being apologized to claims that “they don’t mean it” and we must start all over again.

I cannot say that I have ever insincerely said sorry maliciously. I apologize because I want the other person to know I am acknowledging that they were wronged or inconvenienced, but it is not always because I feel bad myself. In a way, this word has become a shortcut for a larger conversation of acknowledging the inconvenience and asking how we may right it. When it comes to “sorry,” Stephen King said it best in his first novel Carrie:

“Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It’s what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutter ball when you’re out bowling with the girls from the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.”

King blatantly and concisely calls out the shallowness of our apologies in comparison to the deep sadness of sorrow. If we say “sorry” when he spill a cup of coffee or forget to order the right drink, there is not much left to be said for truly sorrowful events. Saying a simple “I’m sorry for your loss” feels so cheap when you hear sorry one hundred times a day for minor indiscretions. Despite their differing roots, sorry and sorrow are undeniably linked in modern English, calling for a rebranding of “sorry” and new ways to apologize. Delivering a sincere apology may be difficult at times, but if we are to apologize we must be sure that it is appropriate and sincere.