"Je suis desole … Lo siento … Ik ben droving … Sono spiacente … Perdoname … Gomensai."

Above are a few of the foreign translations for "I’m sorry."

There was an Elton John song back in the ’70s titled "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word." Well, not these days! Bad behavior, followed by apologies of varying sincerity are rife.

Maybe it started with Hugh Grant, back when he had to go on Jay Leno’s show and apologize for straying with a hooker. At the time he was cohabiting with one of the most gorgeous actresses in the world – Elizabeth Hurley. Hugh squirmed and so did his audience. (The person he needed to apologize to was Miss Hurley. Personally, I couldn’t have cared less.)

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Ever since, there’s been an avalanche of public regret. Remember the excellent writer James Frey groveling in front of Oprah? (His book, highly promoted by Oprah, wasn’t entirely true-to-life.) I want to emphasize here that "A Million Little Pieces" is a fabulous memoir that stretches things a bit. I said at the time that Oprah should have simply handed Frey a gun so he could kill himself on air!

Then there was the head of Hermes in Paris apologizing to Oprah; the talk-show queen and her friend Tina Turner had been turned away from his glamorous shop. (Hermes said the store was closed, Oprah thought it was something else.) And we can’t forget Mel Gibson’s apology for spouting drunken anti-Semitic remarks.

More recently we had a politician, Joe Wilson, of "You lie!" fame, apologizing, but not very sincerely, to the president. (This bad behavior made Wilson a somebody; nobody had much heard of him before that.) There was our heroine and champ Serena Williams apologizing for unsportsmanlike profanity on the tennis court. The adulterous governor of South Carolina apologizing endlessly, in tears, but refusing to step down from his job after admitting to adultery with his Argentine passion. We could go on and on, but let’s end with Kanye West. He apologized three times for ruining Taylor Swift’s win at the Video Music Awards. (She’s doing just fine anyway; it’s Kanye’s tour that’s been canceled.)

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Now comes someone who revealed his bad behavior and has to admit it on air because he is being victimized by a blackmailer. He expresses concern for his family, the other women involved and for his own possibly precarious employment. But he never uttered the words "I’m sorry!" He merely said on air that he probably wouldn’t address the matter again.

I do mean, of course, David Letterman.

I’m not a big fan. I think Letterman’s general behavior toward women is either to slavishly fawn over big sexy stars while being snarky and somewhat disagreeable to those he doesn’t want to flirt with. It’s his privilege and probably he’s right not to say "I’m sorry" to anyone but his wife and employer.

I’m sure he isn’t sorry for past affairs with staffers, even if they are squeamish-making, ethically challenged and, in Letterman’s own words, "creepy."

His audiences and fans will doubtless totally forgive him and his employers definitely want to, as there is so much money at stake, and in a day or two all will be forgiven even if he didn’t say he was "sorry."

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For heaven’s sake, I feel like the immortal Gilda Radner, and her dizzy "Nevermind!" I spoke too soon. David Letterman did say he was sorry to his wife and colleagues on the air last night. Sigh! I was hoping to avoid adding his apology to the long, long, long list of misbehaving celebs. He needed to apologize to his wife, but did I need to hear it?

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Just in case you think this column’s opening indicates that I’m fluid in languages; I’m not. Those "I’m sorrys" come from a past Madonna song. Of course, it wasn’t about the star saying she was sorry. She never seems to say that, not even musically. She might say, "I don’t know what I was thinking when I did that!" Or, "It’s supposed to be ironic!" But she keeps apologies private. If she started saying "Mujhe maaf" – the Hindu words of regret – we’d know the Apocalypse had arrived.