British person will say sorry almost 2 million times in his or her lifetime. It found that on many occasions people use the word ,,sorry" to tell others that they don't have time to say or do something that was said (,,Sorry what was that?") or for( ,,exuse me") when they want to get someone's attention(,,Sorry, have you got the time?") Almost 20% of a British person's apologies are made to strangers, only 8% are made to friends and 14% to work collagues. Sociologists have tried to explain these seemingly unnessesary apologies but unfortunately there is no space here to go into their theories in any depth. Most people interviewed for the survey also felt that ,,sorry" is too often used in a flippant way as an attempt to reduce, another person's displeasure, but without any intention of addressing the source of the problem. One possible conclusion,therefore,is that while the quantity of apologies heard in Britain
Horne in the reader Theories of Social Order present several widely-acknowledged explanations for social order. In this essay, the explanations regarding a shared meaning, norms and values and power and authority are explained. Furthermore, the extents to which these explanations can be convincing are assessed. Meaning Hechter and Horne argue, that "shared concepts and beliefs are a perquisite for successful communication" (Hechter and Horne, 2003:44), thus bringing together the ideas of many sociologists in explaining the importance of meaning when explaining social order. Meaning, which can be defined as a sum of common concepts and beliefs that enable cooperation, has been defined yet so differently by various sociologists. Emile Durkheim (Durkheim, 1912) tries to explain meaning by describing the importance of religion in social interactions, and by portraying the similarities between social interaction and religion. Society never stops creating sacred things
you," not only in the English language but in others as well (such as with the Por- tuguese term "obrigado"). The future reach of the obligation is nicely connoted in a Japanese word for thank you, "sumimasen," which means "this will not end" in its literal form. The impressive aspect of reciprocation with its accompanying sense of obli- gation is its pervasiveness in human culture. It is so widespread that, after inten- sive study, Alvin Gouldner (1960), along with other sociologists, report that all human societies subscribe to the rule. 1 Within each society it seems pervasive also; it permeates exchanges of every kind. Indeed, it may well be that a developed sys- tem of indebtedness flowing from the rule of reciprocation is a unique property of human culture. The noted archaeologist Richard Leakey ascribes the essence of what makes us human to the reciprocity system. He claims that we are human be-
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