Does anyone know what ‘passive aggressive’ means?

[WomanStanleyWoman2]

‘Passive aggressive’, or pas agg, to which people insist on abbreviating it, has always been a popular description of behaviour amongst MNers. But after reading a few threads lately, I’ve started to wonder if people know what it actually means.

To me, passive aggressive would be a comment like ‘Oh, I’m so envious - I wish I could be as relaxed about housework as you’. Or deliberately refusing to move because someone hasn’t said Excuse me’, even though you can see they’re trying to get past.

Yet on recent threads, I’ve seen it used to describe any vaguely negative interaction. Two examples that spring to mind are both about neighbours. One woman said her husband had warned their neighbour about upcoming building work, and she’d later said ‘Gosh, you weren’t kidding about the noise, were you?’ This was apparently ‘passive aggressive’. How? Surely she was completely upfront that she was finding the noise difficult?

Another OP said her neighbour had shouted ‘Shut up’ when there was noise. Again, supposedly passive aggressive. Where’s the passive bit?! Isn’t telling ‘Shut up’ just plain old aggressive?

Have I completely misunderstood this term, and actually anything less than a punch in the face is ‘pass agg’?

You're right, the examples you've given are wrong. It's amazing how many people misunderstand it, actually.

It’s when I put ‘regards’ instead of ‘kind regards’ on emails. Or is that too passive?

It's like when everyone became a narcissist suddenly a year or so ago. Not every person you don't like is a narcissist, now is every statement that annoys you passive aggressive. A lot of people have no idea what gaslighting is either

YANBU.

I see mortified being misused on here lots too.

I totally agree on your second example.

However, in your second example, I think it was the only OP that thought the neighbour was making passive aggressive digs and, unless the thread moved on since I saw it, most people disagreed with the OP and thought the neighbour hadn't said anything wrong so in that case, most people did understand that it wasn't passive aggressive.

Second paragraph was about your first example. Aargh!

There is an element of passivity if you shout 'shut up' where there is a chance the person annoying you won't hear or realise it refers to them. Aggressive would be them yelling it into your face. I don't think it's truly passive aggressive but I can see why someone might, it's aggression while avoiding deadline with someone directly.

Yeah, PA to me means when you're pretending to be nice but really you're having a dig.

*dealing, not deadline

I can give you hilarious example.

My neighbour discovered I had written something less than pleasant about her on facebook. Via the one person who knows both she and I.

(She makes a habit of conducting all conversations in her back yard a few feet from where I sit in my office, at full volume - I had written that it was a bit silly to be swearing at the older child, for swearing in front of the younger child... in front of the younger child).

She discovered this some 8 months after the fact.

She printed out the comment, laminated it and sent one of her many children round with to knock on my door and hand it to me. (Child was mortified!)

That.. is passive aggressive.