What do Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Olympic gold medallist Ryan Lochte and comedy writer Kurt Metzger have in common?



They wouldn’t know how to say they’re sorry to save their lives, as illustrated this week by their very public non-apologies for equally public bad behavior.

Let’s start with the man who has so much to apologize for, the master of misspeak, Donald J Trump.

At a campaign event Thursday in North Carolina, the brusque businessman made headlines for what may have been the first expression of regret in his political career.

“Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing,” Trump declared as he read from prepared remarks.

“And believe it or not, I regret it. And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues.”

But Trump never said what he was sorry about, and he was equally vague about whom he was apologizing to.

The women of America, because he’s referred to them as “dogs”? The Muslim gold star parents of a US soldier who died in Iraq, for suggesting he has sacrificed as much “by creating jobs”? Or were his words aimed at the disabled reporter he mocked in a slice of video that will not die?

Who knows? And that’s the problem, according to linguistics professor Edwin Battistella, author of Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology.

Battistella, a professor at Southern Oregon University, described Trump’s words as “utterly insincere” and noted that, in politics at least, the real estate mogul has lots of company: Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan.

“Think about the way your mother taught you to apologize,” Battistella instructed. “You look the person in the eye and say: ‘I’m sorry I threw the rock at your car, and I won’t do it again.’ If you don’t say what you did wrong, it’s a half apology, a fake apology.”

Lochte was even more vague and, if it’s at all possible, even less believable.

Ryan Lochte: ‘I should have been more responsible in how I handled myself.’ Photograph: Michael Sohn/AP

After a drunken night in Brazil, the US swimmer said he and three other athletes had been robbed at gunpoint by men pretending to be police. Authorities in Rio de Janiero, who have been criticized for their city’s crime rate and abuses in favelas, were not amused.



Then they found video suggesting the group had been involved in an altercation at a gas station – after one of the swimmers vandalized a toilet door and then lied about it.

Lochte’s initial approach: a mix of blaming the victim, self-aggrandizement, shaming your country and a hint of abusing your hosts. On Friday, the swimmer released a pseudo-apology.

“I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend,” the 32-year-old tweeted. “For not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many athletes fulfilling their dreams of participating in the Olympics.

“It’s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country – with a language barrier – and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money to let you leave,” he continued. “But regardless of the behavior of anyone else that night, I should have been more responsible in how I handled myself and for that I am sorry.”

Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, was not impressed. After the 12-time Olympic medallist tweeted his regrets, Paes told reporters he had “pity, contempt” for the crew of prevaricating vandals.



He bemoaned the “faults in their character” and said it was the US Olympic Committee’s job to sort out the mess, which has threatened to become an international incident since a Brazilian judge pulled Lochte’s teammates off a plane.

Paes tried to be diplomatic: “They certainly do not represent the US athletes who came here.”

Like Trump, Lochte responded to controversy with an “absurd” expression of remorse and a deep sense of entitlement, according to Vanderbilt University Centennial professor of philosophy John Lachs, a specialist in ethics.

“Once again you have the sense that, ‘I am such a successful human being that I can do anything. The world is waiting for a remarkable event that I will cause,’” Lachs said.

His advice to Lochte? “Control yourself. Don’t drink too much. Even drinking too much is ultimately to do with control. The foundation of civilized life is control.”



Which brings us to Kurt Metzger, the least apologetic of this week’s penitents.



Metzger was a regular writer for Inside Amy Schumer, a popular show on Comedy Central, who began a labyrinthine social media saga when he mocked alleged rape victims on Facebook, parodying the idea that they should be believed without filing a report to the police.

“They are women!” he wrote. “ALL women are as reliable as my bible! A book that, much like a woman, is incapable of lying!”

In one of many additional posts, he appeared to sidle close to apology without actually getting there: “I stand by the points I made, but I sincerely apologize for using inflammatory language to make them.”

In the interests of improving public discourse, Battistella shared what he considers the keys to a good apology. Name what you did wrong. Be direct and clear. Ask for forgiveness. Say what will change in the future.

Lachs would add one more ingredient: “Sincerity”.

“The ideal,” he said, “is not to do stupid things for which you have to apologize. The next best thing is to apologize and to mean it.”

