阅读理解
If
you meet a British person in the street, it is very likely that he or she will
apologize whether it is his or her fault（过错） or not.
It
seems that Britain is becoming a nation where everyone is saying sorry. Almost
each person says sorry about eight times each day-and one in eight people apologize
as many as 20 times a day.
As
you may have seen, the British apologize more often than members of other
cultures. A research shows that in many cases, people's love of saying sorry in
Britain goes a little further than it does for Americans. For example, about 15
British people would say"sorry" while only 10 from the[US would do
this if they sneezed, if they corrected someone's mistake or if someone knocked
into them.
In
the old days, "sorry" was used to express regret and sadness for
having done something wrong. But now British people use the expression as a way
of showing good manners. For example, they might say "sorry" instead
of "excuse me", "pardon", "what" or "whatever".
People
in Britain also use sorry when they share the same feeling with others-so they
might say "sorry about the rain".
However,
British people's use of "sorry" may make things very confusing（迷惑不清）and difficult for foreigners who are not familiar with their ways. But
actually, people in Britain pay much attention to the feelings of others. This
is the very reason why they apologize every t day.
