Re the use of the expression passive-aggressive

[Vintagejazz]

Just seen it being used totally inappropriately on yet another thread. Is this just some kind of buzz wordy/catch all phrase on Mumsnet that is no longer expected to adhere to its original meaning?

Oh bollox, new page.

MNHQ recently asked for people to comment on why AIBU is such a horrible place and asking for pointers as to how obnoxious posters post.

I said that PA posts are one of the typically manipulative ways posters twist what someone else says. There was lots of agreement and PA seemed to become the buzzword! I have an awful feeling I started the PA trend! Hadn't seen it much til then

ISneeze I first started to notice this a couple of years ago when the expression seemed to be strewn around threads like confetti. It's actually not as bad as it used to be, so I definitely wouldn't blame yourself for it.

It's misused all over the internet, including on mumsnet and including on this thread. I mean, look, we've had at least five or six different definitions of it now, all of which are wrong; this is what it actually means:

Passive-aggressive behavior is the indirect expression of hostility, such as through procrastination, sarcasm, stubbornness, sullenness, or deliberate or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible.

For research purposes, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) revision IV describes passive-aggressive personality disorder as a "pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance in social and occupational situations".

And I wish people would stop getting it wrong because it gets on my wick.

I've just read back and the only instance of passive aggressiveness on this thread is the tenant who pissed people about.

Well I think my example of the apartment tenant corresponds exactly to that description. She delayed, was hostile and sullen in attitude and failed to make the place presentable for viewing even though that was her responsiblity.

x post cruickshank.

I think my sister bridesmaid example fits the description too.

Yes my original post was a x post as well. I almost don't want to post again in case it happens a third time!

I've seen it described in dictionaries as 'behaviour that allows people who aren't comfortable being openly aggressive to still get their own way under the guise of pleasing others' and I think the 'oh no I'm fine honestly' accompanied by an injured or resentful look or sad sigh would also fit the term.

But I've seen it being thrown at people in totally inappropriate ways on threads and it's irritating and has really turned me off the expression.

Ok, so the snarky exchange about hoeing a lie down up thread. That doesn't count as pa ?

I didn't know that the DSM has it listed as a personality disorder. I learnt new something today.

I think it's just an adjective describing a certain behaviour. Someone who puts up with something in real life but complains to others is displaying p.a. behaviour because the are choosing not to be assertive.

If the example in this case was about someone who didn't understand what was happening or who had objected to the problem but been ignored, then not p.a. In the case oulined here it was.

There's a lot of it about, it's a by-product of self-preservation. Don't want to risk losing face by directly complaining, so smile but stab in back later.

Oops yes missed the bridesmaid; she's passive aggressive too. Ok, so this thread has got passive aggressive nailed. Time to go out and spread the word across the rest of mumsnet and indeed facebook, all discussion boards including discussion boards attached to newspapers and especially the BBC. Fly, my pretties, fly!

BZZZZZT unrealhousewife that isn't passive aggressive - two-faced, disloyal etc maybe, but to be passive aggressive you'd have to be sabotaging what you're meant to be doing without actively committing an act of sabotage.

Cruickshank i said the Behaviour is passive aggressive. It just is. Doesnt mean the person is p.a. In themselves.

I remember when the phrase was coined, it was definitely a kind of behaviour and just a pseudo smart way of saying two-faced or backstabbing.

To me it describes someone who is unable to be assertive and so finds fault in the other person rather than seeking a conclusion. People who do nasty things just for the sake of sabotage and disguising it as something else are doing something different.

Well, that might be what it means to you, but it's not the actual meaning. Still, everyone else has their own personal definition of it and misuses it with gay abandon, so I guess you might as well join in.

How can procrastination be indirect expression of hostility? Isn't it self sabotage?

Sorry!

Oops yes missed the bridesmaid; she's passive aggressive too.

Thank fook for that. I thought my years in therapy had been wasted.

No years in therapy are ever wasted.

[gibbers, softly, in a corner, about People Getting Passive Aggressive Wrong On The Internet]

Here, have a go at these

www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

People don't use the word "irony" or "ironic" correctly either.

Sometimes you just have to shrug, come to terms that there's dull crayons in every box, and take a stance of apathy.

Just checking I'm using PA correctly: are these examples PA?

1 - The person that gets offended by something you've put on Facebook but you only hear about it through other people they've complained to
2 - The colleague that doesn't want to do a task they've been assigned so just doesn't do it
3 - The "friend" that doesn't want to be your friend anymore so stops returning calls or messages, or replies so late in the piece you start to wonder what's going on or if they even like you
4 - The person who leaves a snarky note in the work kitchen about keeping it clean but it's typed out so no-one knows who actually wrote it
5 - The person who doesn't like something you've done but just huffs puffs and sighs loudly rather than actually saying anything about it

I get especially stuck on #5 - I thought that was PA, but it doesn't meet the definition as the person I know who does this doesn't control the situation as the huffing, puffing and sighing is easy to deliberately ignore if they don't actually say anything