Great put downs for rude people

Yes, I agree, being nice usually wins rude people over. I had a particularly grumpy delivery man who regularly dumped parcels on the doorstep, rang the bell, and ran, head down to his van without looking back. Each time I'd call out 'thank you, have a good day'. He now rings the bell, waits for me to answer, makes a cheerful comment about the weather and actually picks my parcel up after taking its photo and hands it to me!

My best friend and I speak in BBC received speech. This wrongly leads to some people thinking we are posh. We are not. On a trip abroad a couple of girls in the group that my friend was travelling with, called her posh. She was a bit taken aback and almost upset. The tour guide said best response was 'You called me posh, you obviously meant that as an insult. How about I call you common, how does that sit?.' looking forward to using that riposte.

Life’s too short to undertake educating everyone with bad manners that I meet!

I prefer the approach Milliedog takes. We never know what difficulties people are carrying. I’d also rather be direct if necessary, than passive aggressive.

Nope. I'm extra specially nice to rude people and it usually works in the end. We had a very offhand unfriendly woman working in our local post office and if there wasn't a queue, I used to give her a broad grin and ask her how she was etc. It took a few weeks, but it worked in the end. Sometimes we're all unintentionally rude because our minds are on something else, or we're not well, etc. Sometimes people are just rude because they are difficult. However, none of us is perfect and you can catch more people with honey than with vinegar ☺️

My husband held a door open for a lady. She sailed through without thanking him. He said 'Sorry I didn't hear what you said'. She replied 'I didn't say anything.'. He said 'Oh I could have sworn you said thank you'.

For anyone who doesn’t say Thank you if I hold a door open for them etc, I say rather loudly ‘you’re welcome’. Just loud enough for them to hear, you know?

My lovely mum’s reply to. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’ was’I don’t answer personal questions.’

Try saying 'Pardon -I didn't catch what you said'. They have to repeat themselves and you can then repeat your pardon phrase.They feel silly being rude three times in a row! And you can end by saying 'I thought you said that but I thought I must have misheard' and smile sweetly at them.

Ages ago I said to a rude snappy check out lady in Tesco, "What charm school did you go to?". I had read it somewhere and it came in handy.

It was a busy train from Oxford to Reading and I really felt very tired. I noticed a free seat with a briefcase on it next to a man in a suit.
" Excuse me can I sit down please ? "
His reply , " But my case is there "
" Does your case have a ticket because I do and I'm sitting there ! "
Reluctantly he moved his bag,rude man

I need to remember some of these.

"You do know you said that out loud, you didn't just think it!!!"

The classic, ' I could agree with you but then we'd both be wrong'.

For any nosy, intrusive question, ‘If you’ll forgive me for not answering that, I’ll forgive you for asking it.’

"I assume you didnt mean that to sound as rude as you did!"

Depending on what said another one is just "not understanding"

"What do you mean?" Blank stare. ....."Yes but what exactly do you mean?" ...Blank puzxled look ..." That is still not clear. What do you mean?"

Ties rude people up in knots!!

Heehee😆
Good one Judy54 I’ll have to remember that.

kittylester

Yep, about 2 hours later!

Ditto.

I rather like "did you mean to be so rude"?

My usual put down is “Were you born rude or did you have to practice?” The last time I said this to someone, DH had to stand between us!

Yep, about 2 hours later!