It’s no secret that women apologise more than men, with research showing we have a lower threshold for what we consider is worth saying sorry for.

In 2016, Google even launched a Gmail “Just Not Sorry” plug-in to help women scan their work emails and identify common caveat words such as “just” and “I’m sorry”.

The tool, said creator Tami Reiss, would prevent women from “softening their speech in situations that called for directness and leadership”.

Saying sorry too much can be undermining on a professional level, with some even interpreting it as a habitual token of subservience that reinforces tired old gender clichés.

However, our tendency to apologise too readily also risks another (often overlooked) fallout, as actor Blake Lively pointed out this week.

The unexpected reason why you should avoid saying sorry at work