This is the language of solemnity and regret, whereas what you really want to be going for is something more authoritative.
Robert Macfarlane's Landmarks (Hamish Hamilton) explores the language of landscape and regrets the loss of regional vocabulary – that which defines and enriches our abused natural environment.
But it would not go easily, particularly among well-educated Chinese youths, who have formed a wellspring of nationalist sentiment in recent years and generally know enough English to have read the original English-language version of American statement of regret.
The leader of Zuckerberg's high-profile immigration lobby has already issued a statement of "regret" for ambitious language in an early prospectus on its goals and tactics, "Given the status of our funders and quality of our team, we will drive national and local narratives to properly frame our agenda," reads the leaked memo, obtained by Politico.
Dorfman shuttles among three continents and two languages, adrift in "an eternal victimhood of regret".
In natural language, typical elements of coloring are expressions of regret such as "unfortunately".
As a reporter accompanied five chaplains around New York over several weeks, they and their patients sometimes spoke in specifically religious terms, but more often employed the everyday language of pleasure and pain: about regrets, loneliness, conflicts unresolved with relatives living and dead; about dogs, movies and people they loved, the meaning of dreams, the TV show "Dancing With the Stars".
They were written in Koine Greek, the common language of the eastern Roman Empire (with regrets to Mel Gibson, whose insistence in having the Roman soldiers and Pontius Pilate speak Latin was one of the many historical inaccuracies in his Passion of the Christ).
Years from now, Republicans might actually regret introducing that language of human rights into the pro-life discussion.
Meeting with ironworkers last summer, he shared a rare expression of regret, saying he was initially ashamed of using gutter language.
