Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1044, Issuing a Public Apology.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1044.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a story about someone who has to apologize for something he has done wrong.
Let's get started.
Working in public relations, I often have to deal with my clients' gaffes and blunders.
My job is to calm any firestorm before it gets out of hand.
One of the most important things to do whenever there's been a misstep is is to issue a public apology.
An apology should say plainly and clearly that the individual or company is sorry and that it takes responsibility for its actions.
If possible, the apology should outline corrective actions that will be taken.
The key is to come clean, apologize and take the blame, and to do so quickly and without hesitation.
And the others?
Many of them are still trying to salvage their reputations and to bounce back.
And me?
I try very hard not to say, I told you so.
This episode is all about apologies.
An apology, A-P-O-L-O-G-Y, is when you say that you have done something wrong.
Often, an apology is asking for the forgiveness of the person or people that you have harmed or injured.
We apologize for things we do wrong.
At least we should, but not everybody does.
In our story, the person is involved or working in public relations.
Public relations R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S refers to an area of work, a professional field, where people try to improve how companies and individuals are seen by the general public.
Public relations is involved in protecting the reputation and the image of a company or of an individual.
Working in public relations, I say, I often have to deal with my clients' gaffes and blunders.
A gaffe.
G-A-F-F-E is is a small mistake, especially when you have said something that is wrong or perhaps has hurt someone.
A blunder, B-L-U-N-D-E-R, is a small mistake or error, usually some action that has been taken.
A gaffe is usually something that someone has said.
A blunder is often something that someone has done, although you could use blunder for something that you said as well.
A blunder often causes you embarrassment and requires that you apologize.
My job, according to the story, is to calm any firestorm before it gets out of hand.
A firestorm.
F-I-R-E-S-T-O-R-M is a major problem, something that attracts a lot of negative attention, a lot of criticism.
The word firestorm is used often in business to talk about a big problem, or in politics to talk about some controversy, some thing that happened, that everyone is talking about and that perhaps may require someone to apologize for.
The expression to get out of hand means to become out of control.
It refers to a problem that has become so big that it is impossible to solve it.
We sometimes say that a situation is getting out of hand, meaning the situation is getting worse and we won't be able to control it or fix it if we allow it to continue to grow, to continue to get bigger.
The job of the public relations department in a company is to calm any firestorm before it gets out of hand.
To calm, C-A-L-M, means to stop or to end or to make less serious.
To calm a firestorm would be to take a situation where there's a lot of negative energy, a lot of negative reaction, and try to end that negative reaction by doing something to stop the situation from getting out of hand, from growing and becoming worse.
I continue by saying one of the most important things to do whenever there's been a misstep is to issue a public apology.
A misstep, M-I-S-S-T-E-P, one word, is a mistake.
It's an error.
It's something that you did or said that was wrong.
Usually a misstep is not a serious situation, but it could be.
A public apology is when you make a statement and you send it to the newspapers and to the magazines and to the television stations so that everybody knows that you're apologizing.
A private apology would be when you say you're sorry to someone individually without other people knowing about it or at least without the newspapers reporting it.
An apology should say plainly and clearly that the individual or company is sorry, I say.
Plainly, P-L-A-I-N-L-Y, means the same as clearly.
To say something plainly is to be very direct, to be very explicit, without any sort of hidden message.
Plainly and clearly, then really mean the same thing here.
The apology should say that the individual or the company is sorry.
To be sorry means that you feel badly about what you have done.
You regret something you have done.
I also say that when a company apologizes, it should take responsibility for its actions.
To take responsibility for something is to say that you are the person who caused this to happen or you are the person to blame if something goes wrong related to this particular action or situation.
When you take responsibility for something, you say, I am the person to blame.
If there's a problem, it's my fault.
I continue.
The word corrective C-O-R-R-E-C-T-I-V-E comes from the word correct, which means to change or fix a situation so that it is working better or that it is the way it should be.
Corrective actions would be things that a company does to fix the problem that it has caused.
The key I continue is to come clean apologize and take the blame.
The phrasal verb to come clean means to admit that you've done something wrong, not to hide the fact that you made a mistake.
To take the blame B-L-A-M-E means the same as to accept responsibility, or to take responsibility for something that has gone wrong.
So, according to our story, when a company makes a mistake, it should come clean, apologize and take the blame.
And it should do so quickly and without hesitation.
Hesitation is when you pause or delay before doing something.
The verb is to hesitate, H-E-S-I-T-A-T-E.
To hesitate is to stop and not do something or to pause before you do something.
The story says you should not hesitate if you've made a mistake, but instead you should apologize right away.
I give my clients, I continue, this advice every time they land themselves in a mess.
Your clients are the people for whom you do work.
To land yourself in a mess.
M-E-S-S means to do something that creates a difficult situation for yourself, to do something that causes problems.
If you land yourself in a mess at work, you've done something that has caused problems for you and perhaps might even hurt your chances of continuing to work at the company.
So it's a major problem.
The word mess is often used to describe a large or difficult or complex problem that someone has caused or created.
In the story I say that I give my advice to my clients every time they land themselves or get themselves in a mess.
But the smart ones listen and the not so smart ones don't listen.
Many of my clients, I say, are still trying to salvage their reputations and to bounce back.
Your reputation is what other people think about you, your public image, we might say.
To salvage S-A-L-V-A-G-E your reputation is to improve your reputation, especially when you have a very bad reputation.
To salvage anything is to take it and fix it and make it better so that you can continue using it.
To salvage your reputation would be to take a negative or bad reputation and try to make it more positive.
To bounce back is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to recover from a difficult situation, to return to a good condition after having been in a bad condition.
If something goes wrong for you, if something causes you difficulty, it's important to bounce back, to do better the next time, to keep trying to improve your situation.
I say that many of my clients don't listen to me, and I try very hard not to say, I told you so.
The phrase, I told you so, is used to emphasize that you were correct about something.
Usually we use this phrase when you tell someone to do something and they don't do it, and then something bad happens to them.
And we say well, I told you.
So, meaning I told you not to do this, or I told you to do it and you didn't, and now you have problems or difficulties.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a native speed.
Working in public relations, I often have to deal with my clients' gaffes and blunders.
My job is to calm any firestorm before it gets out of hand.
One of the most important things to do whenever there's been a misstep is to issue a public apology.
An apology should say plainly and clearly that the individual or company is sorry and that it takes responsibility for its actions.
If possible, the apology should outline corrective actions that will be taken.
The key is to come clean, apologize and take the blame, and to do so quickly and without hesitation.
I give my clients this advice every time they land themselves in a mess, but do they listen to me?
The smart ones do.
And the others?
Many of them are still trying to salvage their reputations and to bounce back.
And me?
I try very hard not to say, I told you so.
There are no gaffes or blunders in our wonderful scripts.
That's because they're written by our wonderful script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
