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Humor: How to Apologize Like a Tiger

• By PETER JEFFREY

I am sorry for that thing I did. I know I shouldn’t have done that thing.

I don’t know why I did that thing. It wasn’t the sort of thing I would normally do.

In the spirit of Tiger Woods and other fallen stars, WSJ’s Peter Jeffrey offers his version of the professional apology.

As a humor columnist, I have always strived to maintain the highest standards, being mean but not too mean and staying above easy laughs like "Weehawken." As a journalist, I have sought to live a responsible life. So it pains me that I let you down by doing that thing I shouldn’t have.

There is no need to name it, that thing I did. No need for graphic details. They would only titillate me. I think we all know what it was, though it wasn’t what the tabloids are saying it was. No need for numbers, or dates, or, indeed, nouns.

Look, there was an unnamed person, and, coincidentally, there was me, and suddenly we found ourselves occupying the same locus in space-time, the same GPS coordinates and the same underwear. Mistakes were made. There were certain transgressions by persons who are not not I. I ask you to accept my deepest and most sincere apologies and to refrain from asking me for what.

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