Passive Aggression: A Rant

I was supposed to be writing about voice in creative writing today, but I thought I'd divert from my ongoing writing series to bitch about the English language and passive-aggression instead. On the internet. With no sense of irony. Don't thank me - I do this as a service to my lovely readers.

I propose that we oust the Passive-Aggressives around us linguistically. English is not a language with many grammatical cases - far fewer than most languages. We know when we're using past or present or future tense, but we tend to forget that we use cases (The Beatles wrote a handy song as a reference guide - you can use "I, Me, Mine" as a mnemonic for the English cases: nominative (I, he/she), oblique (Me, him/her), and genitive (Mine, his/hers)). So we don't understand or examine our use of cases in English, but I think that it's time we studied up on them and introduced a new one. I nominate the Passive-Aggressive case for your consideration, grammarians and etymologists. And why the fuck not? English speakers are passive-aggressive enough in their language to warrant it.

Let's look at a few examples:

Question: "Can I use your bathroom?"

PA Response: "I don't know, can you?"

Appropriate response from asker: "Of course I'm physically capable of urinating on your carpet, you petty cockholster, but I'd prefer to drop an upper-decker in your tank since you probably won't let me back in your house after either action."

Request: "Will you take out the trash?"

Response: "Sure, in a minute."

PA Response: "Fine, then I'll just do it myself."

Appropriate Response: "Please do - since you couldn't wait four fucking minutes for me to finish a complicated task I'll take a break as soon as you're outside so that I can hammer the door shut behind you and release a pack of trained wolverines to scatter the trash and shred your miserable face."

PA Demand for information: "Does anyone in this company have half a brain?"

Appropriate response: "Clearly we do, or we'd be lying on the floor instead of taking customer service calls, but since you're unclear about what "half a brain" looks and acts like, I'd be happy to come to your house and perform the lobotomy that you're so obviously begging for."

Statement: "I love the Twilight books."

PA Response: "I'm sorry."

Appropriate response: "I'm sorry too - it must be really difficult to go through life as a preachy asshole who judges people by the things they enjoy; I like Twilight and I like NASCAR, but at least I don't spend my spare time trying to leech joy away from strangers and masturbating to the smell of my own, rich, intellectual effluvia."

Statement: "I had a bad day."

Response: "I'm sorry."

PA Response: "What're you sorry for, it's not your fault."

Response: "It's pathetic that even after you've had a shitty day you have the energy to point out archaic semantics problems with a phrase that is widely understood as sympathetic in most contexts to the people who are interested in expressing sympathy to you. I am not, however, sorry for setting your face on fire or fucking your sister, because assholes like you deserve to have bad days."

PA Statement: Anything mumbled while moving away from a conversation.

Appropriate response: "Fuck you."

We live in a culture that breeds and feeds passive aggression, it's only fair that we should be forced to give the people around us cues to understand it when we're whining. The Passive Aggressive Case will be the morpheme “-he” added to pronouns by the passive aggressive speaker: “-he” echoes a whine noise, that sound most closely associated with passive aggressive vocalizations an actions, as illustrated below:

Question: "Can I use your bathroom?"

PA Response: "I<b>he</b> don't know, can you?"

Appropriate response: "Fuck you."

Request: "Will you take out the trash?"

Response: "Sure, in a minute."

PA Response: "Fine, then I<b>he</b>'ll just do it myself."

Appropriate Response: "You’re a cunt."

PA Demand for information: "Does anyone<b>he</b> in this company have half a brain?"

Appropriate response: "Die in a fire."

Statement: "I love the Twilight books."

PA Response: "I<b>he</b>'m sorry."

Appropriate response: "Asshole."

Statement: "I had a bad day."

Response: "I'm sorry."

PA Response: "What're you<b>he</b> sorry for, it's not your fault."

Response: "I hate you."

PA Statement: “Mumble<b>he</b>.

Appropriate response: "Fuck you."

I think that this single, simple morpheme would do a good job of making our language more elegant and reducing the stress that we feel in everyday life. Imagine the world we could make if pissy bosses, catty in-laws, and snarky classmates could be ignored with impunity when they verbally communicate that they are whining, not speaking; imagine the liberty to aggressive-aggressively rebuke the dipshits who are too mewling to offer direct criticisms or statements of dissatisfaction; imagine a world where, instead of whiny little bitches, we communicate with direct, critical, honest individuals.

Let’s start a petition, let’s get the “-he” into our language, let’s be clear!

          ………Said the writer on the internet.

Okay, maybe our culture isn’t ready for the passive aggressive case yet. But perhaps that day is coming.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some wolverines to train and some people to set on fire before the night is out.

Cheers,

     - Alli