On apology and its pragmatics

The youth who was standing by my side barged into me. Then he half-turned towards me, and I prepared for the routine apology and the equally routine nod. It wasn't his fault—he had merely submitted to momentum when our trolley bus took a sharp turn, as moving vehicles occasionally do. I was neither angry nor offended. But etiquette has it that an apology is in order when you've hurt (even inadvertently, and even only apparently) someone's body or honour or feelings.

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