I’m sorry,” I said to a friend the other day.“Oh,” she replied. “What for?”And on inspection I really did not know. I did not mean, “I repent of something or other.” I meant something much vaguer, about smoothing a rough edge or ending a mild argument. This is made more complicated because some people, for psychological reasons – good (their sense of self-worth can sustain being wrong) and bad (fear, damaged self-image, excessive responsibility) – find it much easier to apologise, to say “I’m sorry”, than other people do. The ability to say the words “I am sorry” as casually as I know I do in some situations may be as much about pride and ego as it is about recognising that I have committed a “