Why do people say "I'm sorry" at the beginning of a sentence? For example: "I'm sorry, but I don't care for her one bit." On the same note, I would like to understand the meaning of "thank you very much" at the end of a sentence, thus: "I said I'll take it to go, thank you very much!"
Any light shed will be greatly appreciated.
Best Answer
There are quite a few intended meanings of these qualifiers; here are some examples of possible meanings of "I'm sorry," with each interpretation in parentheses.
I could come up with even more, but I hope I've made the point that English is tremendously flexible, and that context, inflection, intonation, the situation, and the demeanor of the speaker, all influence meaning to the point that the same two words can mean dozens of different things.