My son was two and we had just been discharged from hospital following a nasty winter bug. His birthday was only a few days away with no time to plan for a big party, so I invited a close family friend and her kids to a teddy bear-making workshop followed by a pizza. She agreed, huge relief – the problem was solved. But then she cancelled last-minute because apparently her children had received a better offer from a popular classmate who hosted great parties! My friend realised quickly that her honesty had fallen flat with me and so she came over to apologise.

I was reminded of this event recently when I attended a lecture about the psychology of apologies by my colleague Shiri Lev-Ari. She described how research has shown that apologies are most convincing when they involve greater cost, such as in terms of money or time. My friend seemed to know this intuitively – she turned up on my doorstep (time cost) with a bottle of champagne (financial cost) at a time that would have likely inconvenienced her (effort cost).

Shiri wondered if this cost rule would extend to the words that we use when we apologise, and in her recent research that’s exactly what she found. People judged apologies involving longer words of explanation (I did not mean to respond in a confrontational manner) as more convincing than apologies involving shorter words (I did not mean to answer in a hostile way), presumably because they signal greater cognitive cost.

So, here’s my message to my friend: next time you need to apologise, do turn up with that that bottle of champagne but consider replacing your ‘real sorrow’ with ‘genuine remorse’.

Imagine trying to describe everything you see, think or feel with only 120-140 words. That’s the challenge posed by Toki Pona, a constructed language developed by Sonja Lang in an effort to simplify her thoughts while struggling with depression.

At first, my appreciation for the language was due to its impossibly cute script:

But once I really thought about its tiny lexicon, I wondered about metaphor. Every word is expected to stretch: lete means ‘cold’, ‘raw’ or ‘to cool down’. Kili is ‘fruit’, ‘vegetable’ or ‘mushroom’. The question is what happens to the literal-figurative distinction with such underspecification?

Consider two metaphors, drawn from the poets Emily Dickinson and W S Merwin:

1. Hope is the thing with feathers.
2. Everything I do is stitched with your absence.

Now rendered in Toki Pona (translated by my spouse):

1. Wile li ijo pi selo waso – literally: ‘Desire is a thing with bird skin.’
Wile covers want, need, desire, longing, and will. Bird skin is more descriptive than metaphorical.

2. Weka sina li kama lon insa pi pali ale mi – literally: ‘Your absence enters into all my actions.’
Spatialisation echoes the joining effect of stitching, but the translation lessens the metaphorical feel.

In English, metaphor stands out against a background of literalness, a departure from a more ‘default’ use of language. In Toki Pona, the literal-figurative distinction forms a spectrum, since words are always stretched to specify meaning. That shifts the burden of sense-making from writer to reader. In English, metaphor is a writer’s flourish. In Toki Pona, resolving tension falls heavily on the reader.

I used to think alongside Ludwig Wittgenstein that the limit of my language is the limit of my thought. But Toki Pona makes me rethink that. Minimalism in language doesn’t reflect a minimalist world. Meaning-making is inevitable, and constraint simply shifts where the complexity lies.

Lately, I’ve been trying to be a better listener by using Carl Rogers’s technique of ‘unconditional positive regard’ (UPR), an idea I learned about on a recent psychology course. UPR refers to nonjudgmental acceptance of, and care for, a person – regardless of whether you agree with the things they say, think and do. It doesn’t suggest that you ignore or permit harmful behaviour, only that an individual should not have conditions they need to meet for them to be worthy of warmth and support.

When I first heard about UPR, it struck me that one reason it might be so powerful is that we very rarely come across this nonjudgmental approach in our daily lives. From socialising to contributing in meetings, it can often feel as though we’re being assessed in various ways. I thought about how comforting it is when you know you’re being held in a positive regard that isn’t going to waver, even if you have an off day or make an error – and whether this was something I could more intentionally foster for the people around me.

In practice, this has meant resisting the urge to jump in with advice, which I’ve noticed is often infused with judgment, and attempting to listen without necessarily looking for a solution. It’s revealed more of my own biases and thought patterns – such as the way I sometimes default to ‘I would/wouldn’t have done X’, rather than understanding where the other person is coming from. It’s meant asking more questions and being increasingly mindful of my nonverbal communication, such as avoiding facial expressions that communicate surprise or disagreement. Granted, I fail every day to uphold the aims of UPR, but the process of attempting it has increased my capacity for compassion – and a happy side-effect is that I seem to judge myself a little less now, too.