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Comment by justin_vanw | Hacker News Reader

That's not what passive aggressive means.

People always use this term wrong.

Specifically, the definition is: "pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance in social and occupational situations"

Example: Letting the air out of someone's tires. This is an aggressive act. It's not passive aggressive, because it's not passive. It is sneaky and cowardly, which has nothing to do with being passive.

Example: Your manager is on the hook to have feature X ready on Monday. He has annoyed you by buying the wrong brand of coffee, so you read HN all day on Friday and avoid working on the feature. On Monday your manager looks bad for not delivering the feature on time. This is passive aggressive, because it was via withholding of sufficient effort that you managed to harm someone.

Why it does matter, especially if everyone seems to get it wrong: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

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That's only the DSM-IV definition. Psychology is a lot bigger than that, and the English language is bigger still. The difference between passive aggression and aggression boils down to whether the anger is being expressed directly or indirectly. It isn't solely determined by inaction, and there's a spectrum in-between the extremes. Letting air out of someone's tires is passive aggressive because it avoids confrontation while causing harm, whereas going up to the driver and punching them in the face is aggressive and does not avoid confrontation.

Faking niceness is similarly passive aggressive because it avoids confrontation while causing harm. Adding sarcasm into the mix, admittedly, makes it more aggressive, but it's still more passive aggressive than being straightforwardly aggressive in the first place.

Regardless of whether or not I'm right, regardless of whether your comment was disingenuous, passive aggressive, aggressive, or sarcastic, I'm unhappy that you're openly and unapologetically being uncivil on Hacker News, it's against the guidelines, and I'd like it to stop.

So you are upset because I am breaking the rules, and not because we are arguing in this thread?

Now who is being disingenuous?

As for your "definition", passive means a lack of action. No amount of arguing will make you right.

The convincing argument you might have given, except you are clearly not able to admit even slightly you were ever not perfectly correct about something:

Language is defined by usage, not definitions in books. People can't use a phrase wrongly, it means what they meant it to mean, the only question is whether it is an effective way to communicate when other people will interpret it differently. In this case, the dictionary definition is never meant, what people really mean when they say passive aggressive is "weak, not physically aggressive hostility".

Incivility is against the guidelines. Civil arguments and debate are fine. Normally I'd be happy to discuss the nuances of aggression and passive aggression, but the tone of this conversation has become overly hostile and I don't want to participate any more.

I disagree with you as to what passive aggression means, in that you have a narrow view and I have a broad view, but there's likely many mental health professionals who actively rely on the DSM in their work that would agree with you. I will certainly keep that in mind when I use the term in the future, so thanks for pointing it out.

I have decided to follow your lead and take a 'broad view' of what 'incivility' means, which is to say the real definition and it's direct opposite.

Good luck on taking the high road, or whatever it is your posturing is meant to convey!

Oh, and if you are going to pretend my definition is just the dsm 4 super narrow version (as if you had any idea of that before you looked it up on Wikipedia to try to debunk what I said), try googling 'passive aggressive definition'.

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