[Tsuwabuki]

Originally Posted by MissMisa

No no, I wasn't stating that's how it was, I was asking if it was like that. I've never been to the USA, I wouldn't know, but from reading this thread, that's how people are suggesting that people in the USA respond.

Ah. I was unsure of your intent, and I didn't want to assume it. I can't state I represent every American, but I know why I express apologies as I do, and why I expect them to be expressed to me the same way. If how I apologise is typical of how Americans apologise, than the logic I have explained might be typical as well.

And to be honest, that whole paragraph just sounded like a blame shifting lame excuse to me, but maybe that's where we are culturally different. I personally don't think it was a very different tone at all, it was the same excuse with fancy language.

Stating reasons of how the mistake was made is not the same as shifting blame. There is no logical progression in the argument that it is. Words matter. That "fancy language" shows not just the sincerity of the apology and an understanding of the mistake that was made, but also gives the person you're apologising to a plan of action for correcting that mistake.

Anyone can say "Sorry, I won't do it again" but it takes someone who has really considered the ramifications of their actions and has a commitment to preventing it in the future to share to decide on a course of prevention.

If someone were to give that excuse at my school/university, they would be told to stop making excuses, stop wasting time, to sit down and not do it again.

And I would feel that I had just been verbally spat on for a sincere apology.

Far from ending the event, as has been suggested, this would engender quite a lot of resentment. If done in public, in a classroom, as you suggest, it would be a clear case of "two wrongs don't make a right" and I would report the professor to the dean. It's fine to refuse an apology in private, but to humiliate a student in public with no clear evidence of intent of equivocation is going too far.

Who cares how it happened, as long as it doesn't happen again, it doesn't need a long winded pointless explaination.

I care. And as stated, I would not consider the explanation either long winded or pointless. I would also expect it from others. I'm just going to ask anyway if you leave it off.