Passive aggression, according to an article in the Economist magazine a couple of years ago, is taking over the world. Instead of expressing antagonism we cloak our true feelings in words and phrases with apparently positive connotations, making it hard for the person we’re addressing to argue back — or sometimes even to detect that we’re being aggressive. Remote working and messaging apps have supposedly turned us all snippy.
Like with so many other global trends Swedes were very much early adopters, even if this is one trend that Svenska Institutet won't be boasting about. But if hiding your true feelings isn’t healthy, perhaps it comes from a good place: passive aggression is usually a consequence of conflict avoidance, and avoiding dålig stämning is a Swedish national obsession.
But detecting passive aggression isn’t always easy: after all, the whole point of it is to cloak your sniping in plausible deniability. Detecting it in a language that isn’t your own is obviously even harder.
So which words and phrases do Swedes deploy when they’re subtly trying to diss you? I asked some Swedish and immigrant friends for some ideas, and this is what they came up with.
Anmärkningsvärd. This literally means “remarkable”. That sounds quite innocuous, doesn’t it? Possibly even a compliment. But if you’re told your contribution to the latest company meeting was ‘anmärkningsvärd’, don’t start thinking you’re in line for a pay rise. It really means “Now you’ve really pooped in the blue cupboard”.
Var god och. The literal translation is “please”, but the tone here is more officious than polite. What it really means is “Comply. Now”. If you want to actually say please in Sweden, say ‘tack’, which is really thank you, but let’s not get into that now.
Jag hör vad du säger. English speakers, or my fellow Brits at least, will be attuned to the passive aggression inherent in this one. The literal translation is “I hear what your saying”. but don’t take it as agreement. What it really means is: “I hear what you’re saying and I violently disagree”.
Oj. Such an innocent little world, and such an innocent translation.“Oops”. But if you collide with someone in the street and they deploy an ‘oj’, they are absolutely blaming you. The more accurate translation would be: “you bumped into me, you idiot”. Conflict avoidance isn’t always a bad thing, is it?
Tyvärr. This must be the snippiest Swedish word of them all. The literal translation is “unfortunately”, which sounds innocuous enough. But in the hands of a bureaucrat or a call centre worker it usually means “I am not going to help you, this is my final word on the matter, please get off the phone.” It’s most effectively used as a one-word sentence. This is a brick wall in word form.
Jag blev mycket förvånad - Literally: “I was very surprised”. I mean, surprises can be nice, can’t they? But not when you hear them expressed like this. When you hear this, your interlocutor may or may not actually be surprised, but you can guarantee that you are in their bad books.
Så är det säkert - Literally this means “That’s surely how it is.” Here someone’s actually appearing to agree with you. What could possibly be wrong with that? But the addition of ‘säkert’ (‘surely’) usually indicates that they think you’re talking rubbish, but as we’re avoiding conflict we wouldn’t dream of saying so.
Så kan man också göra - Literally: “You can do it like that too”. Well yes, you could, couldn’t you? Theoretically.
Speciell. We all want to be special, don’t we? But trust me, you don’t want yourself or your ideas to be described as ‘speciell’. You can stick out from the crowd in more ways than one...
Man kan inte annat än le. Literally: “You can only smile” (because the alternative is to scream in rage, and we don’t do that because we’re Swedish).
På förekommen anledning. Used in emails and snippy little notices in apartment blocks. It literally translates as “for reasons that have become apparent”. ‘På förekommen anledning’ we need to remind the entire building to always clean the fluff filter in the communal tumble drier. You’ve broken the rules again and you know it. You’ll just have to live with the shame.
Vi. Literal translation: “We”, as in “Här lägger vi vår disk i diskmaskinen” (“Here we put our dishes in the dishwasher”). Because we know you’ve been leaving your dirty coffee cups on the worktop in the office kitchen again. It’s classic conflict-avoidance - it’s a way of telling people what to do — and ticking them off for misbehaving — without actually doing either.
Do you have some favourite examples of Swedish passive aggression? Share them in the comments below.
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