We Brits are pros at being polite while also telling someone to jog on. Whether it’s a “No worries if not!” in a work email or a “Brave choice!” about someone’s outfit—what’s your favourite or most savage passive-aggressive line you’ve used or heard?
What’s the most British way you’ve ever passively-aggressively told someone to f*** off?
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How very interesting.
Thank you for your contribution- pretty much means ‘take your opinion and fuck off.’
Just this morning I told a religious “can I ask you something?” Guy that my last response was a polite goodbye and he should have a good day.
Simply ‘ok’ with a straight face
I just tell them to fuck off
To someone moaning about being in work, “but you always fructify our existence with your presence..”
‘Thanks for that’
‘Anyway…’
‘I look forward to your reply’
‘As per my previous email’
‘I think I’ll give it a miss’
‘All the best’
“I’ll take that onboard please don’t let me keep you”
I arrived at the station a few years ago to be greeted by a parliamentary candidate. I told him that I couldn’t talk to him because I needed to go and wait for a train
That’s, certainly something which could be considered. However it’s not appropriate for any current projects.
https://preview.redd.it/imc7lei5w1ve1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b7a888f9f926bb2950c52cac8a516907c34ecd5
slaps thigh right!..
Don’t let me take up any more of your time.
Or go straight Patrician from Discworld “Don’t let me detain you.”
Thanks for your input.
‘I’m sure you are very busy, so I’ll let you get on with your day’. I’ve used that, verbatim, to good effect
When I replied with “unsubscribe” to a colleague’s email asking me to do something…
“I asked for tea, not hot milk”
“There We Are Then” aka TWAT.
Very subtle and an actual valid way of summing things up and leaving a convo. Win-win!
That has not been my experience = you’re talking utter shit
‘I do hope I’ve provided the clarity you needed’
I’d sign off my annoyed emails with just my name… no “regards”, no “thanks”, no “best”… just name.
“It is clear there is nothing to be gained by continuing this conversation”
“Would you kindly do everyone a favour and close the door on your way out”
After listening to someone rant about something for a good five or six minutes, looking directly at them all the time, take a slight pause, then say “I am sorry, I wasn’t listening”
“I appreciate you have an opinion but perhaps it would be better if you expressed it to someone who may be interested”
“Some people bring joy to a room, it is your choice if that is when you enter or when you leave”
I was asked if I wanted some overtime. I told them I don’t even want to do my normal time.
Sometimes I tell persistent chuggers that I’m terribly sorry but I don’t speak a word of English as I’m actually Chinese and any further dialogue would be a waste of both their time and mine.
Obviously I tell them this in perfect English as I am a white British man who’s lived here all his life, never been to China and don’t speak a word of any of their dialects.
Did you, yeah?
‘As per my previous email’
” well I better crack on “
When in fact everyone knows I will spend all day procrastinating /not doing the job if I can get away with it. You must be a special kind of c*nt if I’m willing to leave the breakroom and go back to my desk willingly
“What an unusual thing to say,” is one of my favourite things that I’ve heard in conversation. With the right delivery, it’s superb.
Not quite on topic but ‘Did you lose a bet?’
That’s nice.
In Scotland we put a hand on their shoulder and say “enjoy yer night mate”.
I appreciate the attempt
‘Well that was certainly a choice’ is one of my favourites.
I’ve also heard ‘oh. How strange.’ in response to someone making a general dickhead comment.
Regards.
Signing off at the end of an email- the full stop emphasizing how angry I really am 😅
How does your village cope without you?
“We could do it that way.”
Then, I comple whatever task I was doing my way.
(At 3pm) “That’s 2 hours away, and I still have an hour on this job” (sometimes, a large part of that hour might be spent drinking tea, but i have to make sure the fix worked!)
You must be very proud.
Works in many ways dependant on which word you stress
the teams emoji that looks like this
https://preview.redd.it/5ybki3hs02ve1.png?width=368&format=png&auto=webp&s=e1a391a8efe6647ef93aef2b578eed2a8d34ca7c
This was identified earlier as a likely outcome.
The professional way to say “I told you so”.
My dad was being accosted by a religious fanatic in the street, without hesitation he said;
The Good Lord once mentioned: Go Forth, Increase and multiply.
He politely told the guy to fuck off.
“I see.”
“Let me know how you get on.”
“Don’t worry about cc-ing me in future.”
“Ah alright then”
Whilst thinking “ain’t you a prick”
No long after the Olympics last year me and a friend were having a sword fight after hours at a small living history festival when this old chap who was one of the other participants wandered over and started talking to us. He started talking about the fairness of competitive sports and quickly went into how in the Olympics now someone like Mike Tyson could put on a dress and punch a woman and no one could say anything could they? Me and my friend just simultaneously said “no” and carried on fighting. He sauntered off looking somewhat dejected.
Don’t be shy, your mother wasnae…
Or
Your the sorta c*nt who’d climb a glass wall to see what’s on the other side.
I once got called a “fat cunt” by a drunk woman while I was walking my dog in a graveyard.
She was upset because my tiny dog yipped at her from 20 feet away.
I said “Let us be married in the springtime!”
She went.
EDIT: For context, I am a fat cunt, but she wasn’t visiting a grave or anything. The graveyard has been closed to new burials for many, many decades.
“Seriously though…”
‘anyway- ill let you get on because I’m sure you’re busy’
My nan watched a lot of Downton Abbey and she loved a scene were maggie smith said “and good afternoon to you” when she was having a disagreement with someone and walked away. My nan now always says “not interested good AFTERNOON” as her “polite” F off / piss off 🤣
Some at work once apologised to me “for being a bit of an arsehole”
“not at all Peter, I wouldn’t say that. They’re was no ‘bit of’ about it at all”
“not being funny but…”
Thanks for that = Fuck you
When salespeople knock at the door and I say, “I’ll leave it for today, thanks.”
Did ye aye?
“Did you mean to say that out loud?”
That’s nice!
Does ” Can you check if you are on the other side of the door” counts?
“I wouldn’t have done it that way, but I’m sure it made sense to you”
A full Rory Stewart “Very good”
Your opinion is noted and will be filed beside the rest of your opinions
That was a predicted outcome…
Usually said after something has inevitably and catastrophically gone wrong.
I write “regards” instead of “kind regards” on emails when someone has really pushed my buttons.
Someone recently told me they say “There We Are Then” during conversation with people they don’t like. It got me questioning my whole relationship with one of my former residents I used to care for who always used to say “Good For You!” to me. Although, I may start incorporating that into my own conversations with people!
My go to phrase on parting with unpleasant people is “The pleasures been all yours”. They usually say “thank you”.
🙂 is the most angry emoji in my universe
Someone missed me out of a series of important meetings and when they apologised today (too late for the thing in question) I’m afraid I did respond with “no worries 🙂”
Quakers are great at this -if someone is labouring a point the standard response is ” our friend has been heard” if an unsuitable person is suggested for a role”that name would not have occurred to me “
HMTLQ “Recollections may vary.”
Ooooooof.
“Sorry, can’t hear you over the sound of me walking away”
“Would you like some more tea before you go?” < My mother
“I’ll get back to you on that” = “WTF are you thinking?”
“How intriguing.” = “Are you quite mad?”
And, (when I get the chance and the person is a nightmare) “See you next Tuesday”.
“He thinks he’s an arse kicker, but he’s only half right”
Not me but my SIL ended up on the receiving end of this mental multi page rant from one of her Aunts.
She just replied a little violin emoji. Then didn’t speak to her for weeks.
I was shook seeing that.
Once said to a customers extremely irritating wife
Who kept repeatedly getting in the way after having been asked to stay out of the way as we had all sorts going on with a telehandler and a crane
It’s OK madam I’m not going to tell you to F@UCK OFF
But if you wouldn’t mind leaving site or watching from your vehicle that would be great thanks for your cooperation and marched off before she could recover
i love a good “If thats alright with you” when you’re asking them the bare minimum
“well ok then”
“Sure thing”
I love the ones tthat sound so passive aggressive they are funny “Of course your ladyship/lordship” “With pleasure ma’am” etc. if you can imagine a victorian butler saying it, its a grand way to tell someone to shove it
My English teacher, upset that I was late for a lesson, demanded me to answer “Can you read my syntax?”. Whilst pointing at his face. This was before google which made the whole exchange more confusing as I didn’t really want to ask him what that meant.
‘Warm Regards’ at the end of an email. My manager came over and told me he nearly spat his tea all over the monitor in hilarity at my rudeness!
“You do you”
“Regards”
[Name]
“If you have any post I’ll leave it on top of the letterboxes” – hang up
Me to the guy who moved out of my apartment. I still get letters from DVLA and all sorts 6 years later. They don’t stop, RTS doesn’t do shit 😫
He asked if he could come back and get any post and I said sure, thinking he’d come a couple times in a month just to catch any strays, but he was turning up 1-2x a day for 2 weeks constantly asking for mail. When I said it above he’d woke me up, don’t think he’s come back since!
“ah interesting”
“I’ll do that later today”
My top 2. I’m still young so I hope I get some more along my life.
“That’s a lot to unpack”
-Everything you just said is unmitigated bollocks mate
This thread has confirmed my suspicious that everyone is actually just telling everyone else to fuck off all the time.
‘For clarity…’
Dear, oh dear
I’m an anomaly because I say what I mean. It gets me into trouble.
Scenario 1:
Them: “Do you want to come to X?”
Me: “Not really but thanks for offering.”
Scenario 2:
Them: “Have I put on weight?”
Me: “A bit, yeah. It suits you though.”
In a work context, use several pieces of nonsense business jargon strung together: ‘let’s put a pin in that, kick it around a bit and run it up the flagpole’.
Whenever someone is bragging/bigging themselves up: “good for you!”
I once accidentally group replied “sigh” instead of forwarding my message to a colleague. Not intentional, but I now don’t regret it because the person I replied to was apparently disliked by most of the others in the chain and lots of people thought I was bravely rebuking their tedious shit.
How entrepreneurial of you. I’ll give your proposal some thought and get back to you.
👍
A gentleman made suggestive comments to me across the road late at night once. I told him I’d rather masturbate with a cheesegrater. Does that count?
Snooty and overly aggressive woman on the phone at work. Well known for being difficult and made a few people cry. She went off at me for using the wrong word, minor slip up. She ended her rant with “I expect an apology, but I suppose that’s too much to ask”. My reply was “I’m afraid on this occasion you’re correct. Is there anything else I can help with?”
On being reprimanded by an office manager 40+ years ago…
“With respect, Mr Harris, I feel your grievances are a little petty.”
He went off on one, about me having the cheek to call him petty.
“Not you, Sir, your grievances.”
When I eventually handed in my notice, he was suddenly all chummy, saying I was taking things too personal. Which tells you everything you need to know about the man.
“Can I stop you there?” and then walk off (I’ve not actually done this, but it was very funny in The Green Wing)
“You may test that assumption at your convenience.”
-Jean Luc Picard.
Please combine sex and travel.
When I need them: “I know you’re super busy so I hate asking, but when you have a spare minute could you just…”
When I need to get away: “Listen, I know you’re super busy so I’ll let you go, you don’t need me taking up any more of your time.”
I don’t even know if they’re super busy… It just flatters them and makes them feel important 😂
Some idiot kicking off on the phone wanting to make a complaint about who knows what asked me my name, and then said ‘And what is your salutation?’ I said, “My title is mister.”
Today I gave my boss a wrist blood pressure monitor, and said ” I thought this would make things so much easier for you to do your own checks at home”, because I’m sick to the back teeth of going into the office and being expected to take his fucking blood pressure twice a day with an arm cuff.
I’m not his carer and nor do we work in a medical setting.
Ordered a McDonald’s breakfast one morning on Just Eat a couple of years ago when my partner was heavily pregnant and quite unwell and we both just wanted to stay home.
Delivery driver turns up and starts having a go at me saying “McDonald’s is literally five minutes up the road!” (Driving)
I just responded with “pays you a wage though doesn’t it?” And shut the door in his face.
I appreciate they get paid quite low but it was just his attitude that pissed me off
Not quite a fuck off, as he was a mate. Older fella who was a mature student at uni. He was always up for drinks but as it got late into the night he had a tendency to turn into an annoying drunk.
I quickly worked out that if we went for a drink in his favourite pub he’d often want to stay. So we’d go there, have a beer then tell him we were going to some shit bar and he’d decide to stay at his favourite pub and we’d continue our night out.
“I don’t think either of us are experts on this subject. Can you ask X”
In other words, your question makes no sense, go and bother someone else and don’t ask me again.
Not for telling anyone to fo but my favourite way to end a conversation that just won’t end is to cut the person off with “right, I have to go see a hand about a wank” then leave. They’re either so dumbfounded they stop yacking or are too busy Laughing to keep yacking. Have never failed me
I was a fairly senior executive at a global company. One day I was in the US, and in deep conversation with a colleague. A young lady – let’s call her Emmy-Lou – saw me and bounded over. I knew who she was, but I hadn’t met her; and obviously she knew I was a Senior Bod in her function. Without waiting for a gap in the conversation, she just bounced up to me and said (and I want you to imagine the voice) “Hey [my name], I’m Emmy-Lou from the Philadelphia office!” I turned to look at her, paused, and I said “yes, of course you are.” Turned back to my conversation. She stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, then slunk away.
Not sorry.
“As I already stated twice before”
I fucking hate having to repeat myself, we have a shit internal system where I can open a ticket for a form but not close one or edit one I submitted. I opened one after being given the wrong information, I was told it was wrong and opened another one with the correct information. Whoever the tickets go to sent back the incorrect one saying the information is incorrect, so I added a note to close it. The moron then sent it back saying the information was still incorrect, I added another note asking them to close it. The fucking idiot sent it back again saying the information was still wrong. Third note “As I already stated twice before, I have filled a separate correct ticket, please close this one and don’t contact me about it again.” They finally closed it. I swear some people are incapable of reading, but concerning when that was the finance department.
I had a colleague who was a complete prick. When they were ill a card was going around. I wrote in big letters right in the middle “Happy Birthday!”
I was working in a campsite shop as a holiday job. About 16 years old. A customer with a Southern US accent asked me ” Do you have any butter?” I said ” No, I’m sorry, we’ve sold out. There’ll be a delivery tomorrow.” She turned away with a dismissive ” Well, there’s no need to be sorry about it” To which my tart response was, “Oh I’m not, I was just being polite.”
“Look, if I were to tell you to eff off, I would be considered rude for telling you to eff off, so I am not going to tell you to eff off, so please don’t ask me any more of your stupid questions or I might tell you to eff off and I don’t want to be rude and tell you to eff off, but if I were to tell you to eff off you would soon know I’d told you to eff off. Happy? Thank you.”.
Never done it, thought about it. Not really passive aggressive really.
“Please, do take care.”
Clem Attlee wins this contest hands down with his inimitable “a period of silence on your part would be welcome”
I was on a hike and some people were keeping pace with us blaring loud music from a Bluetooth speaker. Not bad music but it took me out of the enjoyment of nature.We stopped and let them ahead to put some distance between us then they stopped for a rest not far ahead so we wound up catching up then they got up to follow close behind again.
I turned around and told them that a lot of headphones have the ability to sync together music so they can share music without using a speaker. I immediately cringed at how faux politely ‘just a tip’ way it was phrased. Everyone knew what I was saying but I was too British to just tell then to turn it off! It gave them the ability to just say ‘we don’t have headphones’ as if that made their solution the only reasonable one.
I had openly criticised the conduct of a colleague. I was reprimanded by my manager and told that I should show them respect. I said, “I promise you, I’m showing them the exact amount of respect they deserve”. I heard nothing more about it.
A former boss of mine, an MP, was an utter c*nt but I still chuckle when I think on her response to an extra man she wasn’t expecting to be present at a meeting she finally agreed to on his first attempt to contribute to the conversation:
>It won’t be necessary for you to speak again while you’re here.
Fair enough/ fair play = Couldn’t give a shit. Please stop talking.
Not very passive but I like “go forth and multiply”
“Can we move whatever this is along”
Silently pulled over onto the hard shoulder, got out, went to the passenger side and opened the door
My Dad worked for a ship owners company many years ago and was in charge of collecting docking fees amongst other things. The company received a letter complaining about the price charged for their ships being docked for a week to which father replied by letter, “I am sorry you are unhappy with the fees charged, so if you would kindly send the appropriate amount of brown paper and string I will happily have your vessels returned to you forthwith”.
Years ago before mobiles, there was a lot of really annoying cold-calling in the evenings.
I’d answer the phone, tell them yes, I was interested in their product, but just had to open the front door to let my wife in, and I’d be back in thirty seconds.
In reality I just put the phone on the side so they could hear the TV, and carried on watching it, ignoring the phone completely. Sometimes I could hear them shouting to get my attention for more than ten minutes before they gave up.
I got stuck in a boring conversation with a friend who was obsessed with a trivial matter after a while it started to annoy me. So i said “come and walk with me under the bows of ancients trees and i’ll recite you a poem about how much i dont care”