Passive-Aggressive?

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., dfrankiswork at n... wrote:

> What is the meaning of 'passive-aggressive'? 

This is a *fabulous* dictionary resource: 
http://www.onelook.com/index.html

>From it, I found that Harcourt Academic Press Dictionary of Science 
and Technology says: "passive-aggressive   Psychology. displaying 
aggression in an indirect manner, without anger or confrontation." 

and American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language says "Of, 
relating to, or having a personality disorder characterized by 
habitual passive resistance to demands for adequate performance in 
occupational or social situations, as by procrastination, 
stubbornness, sullenness, and inefficiency."  

Example: Donna was working nights at some awful job while going to 
college days to become an RN and supporting her husband, Sam, who was 
supposed to be job-hunting. She was applying for better jobs and got 
an interview! It was the morning after a day of Big Exams at school. 
Her one Nice Office Dress was in the laundry. Sam offered to do the 
laundry while she was at work the night below and he did put it into 
the washing machine in the apartment building's laundry room. Then he 
forgot all about it -- "I just forgot" is probably THE motto of 
passive-aggression -- and she came home from work at 2-ish in the 
morning to find that her dress was wet and crumpled in a washing 
machine in a laundry that had been locked (on schedule -- it was not 
some kind of surprise) at midnight and wouldn't unlocked until 8AM, 
by which time she had to already be en route.