[TeMPOraL]

> "I'm sorry I offended you" is a perfectly reasonable way to express "I feel bad that you're feeling bad now."

Thank you. The whole subthread confused me mostly about how the word "sorry" in English works.

> it's not about right and wrong, it's simply about expressing the sentiment that you regret what happened as a result of your actions.

Yes, exactly this.

[mikeash]

Well, I think a lot of English speakers are confused as well. There seems to be this idea that "I'm sorry" implicitly means, "I fucked up, it's all my fault, I'm a worm, I deserve to die," and so forth. But it's really just, "I wish it wasn't so, and I'd do it differently if I could go back and try again," or something along those lines.