Passive-Aggressive Email Phrases and Polite Alternatives

The email phrases people most often read as passive-aggressive are per my last email, "please advise," "friendly reminder," "not sure if you saw my last email," "as previously stated," "for future reference," "going forward," "noted," "CC'ing my manager for visibility" and "thanks in advance." Each one is polite on the surface and pointed underneath: it quietly says you missed something, you got this wrong or I'm keeping a record. The polite alternative is almost always the same move. Drop the reference to the other person's failure, then state the fact, the request and the deadline in plain words.

Why some polite phrases read as hostile

Passive aggression in email rarely uses rude words. It uses courteous ones to deliver a complaint that the writer doesn't want to say out loud. Most of the phrases on the lists below do one of four things:

• Point backward at a failure. "As I mentioned," "per my last email" and "as previously stated" all imply the reader didn't read or didn't listen.
• Wrap a warning in a softener. "Friendly reminder" and "gentle reminder" add a kind word to a message that only exists because something is late. Readers tend to hear the opposite of the adjective.
• Withhold warmth. "Noted." "Fine." "Sure." A one-word reply after a long message feels like a door closing, especially with a full stop.
• Bring in an audience. Copying a manager on a small issue turns a conversation into a record of someone's mistake.

Tone is also harder to read in writing than people think. In a series of experiments published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2005, Justin Kruger, Nicholas Epley and colleagues found that email senders were consistently overconfident that readers would pick up their intended tone, including sarcasm and seriousness, and that this overconfidence was stronger for email than for speech. NYU Stern's summary of the work notes that misreadings happened even between people who knew each other well. In other words, the "friendly" in your friendly reminder is mostly in your head.

None of these phrases is automatically rude. What tips one over is context: it's the second or third chase, the reader is junior, a manager is copied, or the sentence that follows is a correction.

What the surveys say

Several surveys have ranked the worst offenders. They don't agree, partly because they measured different things.

The 2023 Preply survey adds context: 76% said these exchanges happened over email rather than chat apps, 42% had received one from a superior, 47% had watched a coworker copy the boss on a minor issue, and 44% admitted sending passive-aggressive messages themselves. Nearly a quarter (23%) said a colleague's passive aggression played a part in a decision to quit.

One counterpoint is worth knowing. "Thanks in advance" appears on the WordFinder list, but in Boomerang's 2017 analysis of more than 350,000 email threads from online community mailing lists, it was the closing with the highest reply rate: 65.7%, against a 47.5% baseline. Being heard as pushy and getting a reply are two different outcomes, and the phrase does both.

The phrase list, with heat ratings

The heat rating is our editorial judgment of how the phrase usually lands, based on the surveys above and on how much the surrounding sentence can rescue it.

• Low: usually fine. Watch the context.
• Medium: depends on tone, timing and who's copied.
• High: reads as a jab almost every time. Rewrite it.

Chasing a reply

The common fix for chasers is to make the message self-contained. Repeat the question, give a date, and offer an easy out ("if Thursday is tight, tell me what works"). Erica Dhawan, author of Digital Body Language, suggested in a 2021 CNBC piece that after two follow-ups go unanswered, you switch to a different channel such as a call rather than sending a third.

Repeating something you already said

Correcting someone or setting a rule

Corrections land better when they include the reason and, where you can, the fix already done. Dhawan's advice in the same CNBC piece is to swap commands for questions: "Could you…" rather than "Please make sure."

Asking for something

Acknowledging or closing

Copying people in

Before and after: five rewrites

The same message, written two ways. Each rewrite keeps every fact and drops the jab.

1. Repeating a deadline

Before: "Per my last email, the deadline is Friday. Please advise if this is unclear."

After: "The deadline is Friday at 5 p.m. I've pasted the details from Monday's email below so they're in one place. Shout if anything doesn't add up."

2. Chasing late figures

Before: "Friendly reminder that I still need the Q3 numbers. Not sure if you saw my last email."

After: "Could you send the Q3 numbers by Thursday at noon? They feed the board deck on Friday. If Thursday is tight, tell me what's realistic and I'll adjust."

3. Correcting a process mistake

Before: "For future reference, invoices go to finance, not me. Going forward please follow the process."

After: "I've forwarded this invoice to the finance inbox, which is where they go. The address is in the onboarding doc if you need it again. Thanks for sending it over."

4. Bringing in a manager

Before: "Adding Priya for visibility. As discussed, this was due yesterday."

After (to the colleague only): "This was due yesterday and the launch depends on it. Can you get it to me by 2 p.m.? If not, I'll need to flag the delay to Priya so she can move the date."

5. Acknowledging a request you don't love

Before: "Noted."

After: "Got it. I can do this by Wednesday if the client review moves to Thursday. Does that work?"

How to reply to a passive-aggressive email

The best reply answers the content and ignores the tone. In the 2023 Preply survey, 80% said they don't confront passive-aggressive colleagues, and about half said they reply in a similar tone, which is how a two-email misunderstanding becomes a month-long cold war.

Scripts you can copy:

• They wrote "per my last email" and you did miss it: "Thanks, I missed that. So we're going with option B, and I'll send the draft by Thursday."
• They wrote "per my last email" but the last email was unclear: "I read it, but I wasn't sure whether you meant the 12th or the 19th. Which one?"
• They copied your manager on something small: Reply with the facts only, no defense. Then message the sender directly: "Saw the note about the slides. Fixed now. Next time feel free to message me first; I'm quick to sort these."
• A friendly reminder about something you're late on: "Thanks for the nudge. It'll be with you by 3 p.m. tomorrow." Give a time, not an apology essay.
• A "going forward" correction: "Understood. Should I fix the earlier ones as well, or only new ones from here?"
• Your manager replied "Noted.": It may just mean noted. If you need more, ask: "Anything else you need from me on this?"
• The tone keeps getting worse: Move off email. "A few of our emails have felt tense, and I don't think either of us means it that way. Could we take 10 minutes on a call to sort out what works?"

What not to do: reply-all in anger, forward the email to a friend in the same company, or send "as per my previous email" back. If you're about to crash out over an email, save it as a draft and reread it in an hour.

If a pattern continues after a direct conversation, keep the emails and raise it with your manager or HR as a working-relationship problem, not a tone complaint. Describe what happened, not what you think the sender meant.

The 60-second tone check before you hit send

Read your draft aloud in a flat voice, as the person receiving it. The BPS Research Digest, covering the Kruger and Epley experiments, noted that senders who did this with a sarcastic message got better at judging that the sarcasm wouldn't come through. Then check:

1. Does it point backward? Delete "as I said," "as mentioned," "per my last email." Restate the fact instead.
2. Is there a softener doing a warning's job? "Friendly," "gentle," "just," "quick." If the message is a warning, make it a clear, calm one.
3. Is there a deadline with a time and time zone? "Soon" and "when you get a chance" invite another chase.
4. Who is copied, and why? If you can't name the action they need to take, remove them.
5. Would a one-line reply sound cold? Add the next step: "Got it, I'll send it Monday."
6. Are you angry? Wait an hour before sending.

You can also paste a draft into the email subtext decoder to see the reading a stressed colleague might give it.

Slack, Teams and texts: the chat version

Chat has its own passive-aggressive vocabulary, and it's shorter. In Preply's 2022 survey, the most passive-aggressive texts were "K," "Nevermind," "???," "Fine" and "Sure," with "Yup," "Ha," "No worries" and "IDK" close behind. Asked which habits felt most passive-aggressive, 44% picked one-word answers, 28% being left on read, and 17% reacting to a message without replying.

At work, a few texting abbreviations carry extra weight:

• smh in a team channel reads as open disapproval of whoever posted last. Fine between friends, risky under someone's work.
• tbh and ngl sharpen criticism. "ngl this deck needs work" from a peer is casual; from a manager it lands harder than they think.
• lmk is neutral and useful. "lmk by 3" is a clear ask.
• Leaving a thread unanswered for days is the office version of ghosting. A quick "seen, will reply tomorrow" fixes most of it. When you're away, an OOO auto-reply with your return date does the same job.
• Long walls of text in chat can read as a lecture. Younger colleagues might call it yapping. Put the ask in the first line.

When these phrases are perfectly fine

Some of the most-listed phrases have honest jobs:

• "As discussed" after a call creates a written record of decisions. That's good practice in contracts, projects and anything with money attached. Keep it, and make the recap neutral.
• "Please advise" is standard in shipping, legal, insurance and government correspondence, where it simply means "tell me how you'd like to proceed." Inside a friendly team it can sound cold; between firms it often doesn't.
• "Noted" is common shorthand in some workplaces and from people writing in a second language. Before you decide it's a snub, look at how that person usually writes.
• "Thanks in advance" gets replies, per Boomerang's data. Use it when the ask is small and reasonable, not when you're assigning extra work.
• "Per my last email" can be the right call once, with a calm restatement, when a decision keeps getting reopened. See the per my last email page for more on the phrase itself.

When it's more than tone

Constant passive-aggressive email can be a symptom. The 2023 Preply survey found that 94% of respondents believed stress or anxiety on the sender's side contributes to it, and 66% said this kind of communication created anxiety that hurt their own work. Someone who has gone quiet and clipped may be stretched thin, or heading toward quiet cracking, the slow loss of morale that comes before people disengage or leave. Someone doing the bare minimum and replying only in one-liners might be quiet quitting.

A short private check-in often helps more than any rewrite: "Your last few emails seemed rushed. Is the workload OK?" If you manage the team, fix the cause, such as unclear deadlines or unreal workloads, and the tone usually follows.

Printable cheat sheet

The swaps worth remembering. Print this section or copy it into a note.

• Per my last email → Restate the answer in one line.
• As previously stated → "To recap:"
• Not sure if you saw my last email → "Resending in case it got buried. Could you reply by [day]?"
• Friendly reminder → "Reminder: [thing] is due [day, time]."
• Just following up → "Can you confirm [decision] by [day]?"
• Any updates? → "Where does [thing] stand? A rough date is fine."
• For future reference → "Small process note: [rule]. I've sorted this one."
• Going forward → "From [date], could we [change]?"
• Correct me if I'm wrong → "My understanding is [X]. Does that match yours?"
• Please advise → "Which do you prefer, A or B?"
• Thanks in advance → "Thanks. Tell me if this is a problem."
• When you get a chance → The real deadline, with a time zone.
• Noted. → "Got it. [Next step] by [time]."
• CC'ing my manager for visibility → Tell the person first, and say why the manager needs it.
• Fine. / K. → "Sounds good, thanks."

And the four-word rule behind all of them: fact, ask, deadline, warmth.

Key takeaways

• The phrases people read as passive-aggressive are courteous words carrying a complaint: you missed it, you got it wrong, I'm keeping a record.
• Surveys disagree on the order, but "per my last email," "please advise," "friendly reminder," "not sure if you saw my last email," "noted" and "CC'ing my boss" appear again and again.
• Writers overestimate how clearly their tone comes through in email, so assume a neutral reader will hear the sharpest version.
• The fix is consistent: restate the fact, make the ask, give a dated deadline, add one warm line.
• When you receive one, answer the content, skip the tone, and move to a call if a third email would make it worse.
• Several "banned" phrases are fine in the right setting, especially recaps after calls and formal requests between organizations.

FAQ

Is it rude to say "per my last email"?

It usually reads as impatient, and it topped Preply's 2023 survey of workplace email phrases. It isn't a swear word, though. Used once, calmly, with the answer restated in the same message, it can be a fair way to stop a decision from being reopened. Used to scold, it starts an argument.

What can I say instead of "per my last email"?

Repeat the information instead of pointing to it: "The deadline is Friday at 5 p.m." If you want to show it's been said before, try "To recap what we agreed on Monday:" followed by the details. Pasting the relevant lines into the new email saves the reader a search, which is the real point.

Is "please advise" passive-aggressive?

It topped WordFinder's 2022 list, which ranked phrases by search interest. In formal settings like legal, shipping or supplier email it is ordinary and means "tell me how to proceed." Between teammates it can sound cold or demanding. A specific question ("A or B?") is warmer and gets a faster answer.

Is "friendly reminder" rude?

Not rude, but many readers hear it as irritated. Preply's 2022 survey and WordFinder's 2022 list both placed it near the top. The word "friendly" draws attention to the fact that you felt the need to say so. A plain "Reminder: forms are due Friday at noon" is clearer and sounds calmer.

What's a polite reply to "noted"?

Usually none is needed. "Noted" often just means the message was read. If you need a decision, ask for it: "Thanks. Do you want me to go ahead with the order?" If one-word replies are a pattern that bothers you, raise it in person.

How do I stop sounding passive-aggressive in emails?

Cut references to past emails, swap softened warnings for plain ones, put a date and time on every request, and say what happens next. Then read it aloud in a flat voice before sending. For a broader list of office phrases, see the corporate jargon guide or try the office speak quiz.