To be <aggessive> or <assertive>

Is it better to be… aggressive or assertive? That is the question.

The Denotation of <aggressive>:

I was not surprised to discover that the base of <aggressive> comes from the Latin root grad(us) denoting a step :– 1) a step as made, a pace, or 2) a step as climbed, a stair’. This root has a variant form gress(us) meaning ‘go, as in step up / out’. So this gave English two bases <grade> & <gress> denoting the idea of ‘stepping out or up’. But to fully understand this, I needed to explore the family of words using this base in English:

<grade> - a step; <gradual> - step by step; <graduate> - divide into steps (degrees), a scale; <degrade> - cause to step down; <downgrade> - ‘step down’; <retrograde> - step backwards; <upgrade> - ‘promote, step up’; <aggress> - step up (go) against; <congress> - ‘stepping out together’, <digress> - ‘stepping aside’; <ingress> - ‘to go in’; <progress> - to step, go forward’; <regress> - ‘to retreat, to go back’; <retrogress> - ‘to backslide’; <transgress> - ‘step beyond what is one’s right (meaning the right to choose the right thing), go beyond the boundary, to break the law’

Using Neil Ramsden’s Word Searcher and my trusty Collins dictionary, I compiled the following matrices:

The Questions I Posed for Investigation :

1. What is the true denotation of <aggressive>?

2. Does it use the same base as <progress>, <regress> and <digress>?

3. What is the true denotation of <assertive>?

4. Does it use the same base as <insert> and <desert>?

Exploring Etymologies

‘The Pejoration of <aggress>’

The verb aggress came into English meaning “to approach, to start an argument” (c.1575), from the Fr. aggresser, from L.L. aggressāre, freq. of L. aggredi (pp. aggressus) "to approach, attack," from ad- "to" + gradi (pp. gressus) "to step to(ward)," from gradus "a step".

‘The Rise of <assert> and Its Ousting of <aggress>’

<assertion> (1424) came into English via O.Fr. assertion (14c.), from L.L. assertionem (nom. assertio), a noun of action from L. asserere "claim rights over something, state, maintain, affirm," from ad- "to" + serere "join".

The Discussion

Over a coffee one afternoon with my friend, June, the question arose as to whether it was better to be aggressive in one’s dealings with people, particularly in the working environment, or as is commonly suggested, was it more appropriate to be assertive?

It raised some interesting questions because I immediately started to think about the base element for each word and the related word families. I had always had a feeling that the term <aggressive> had had a rather bad time of it linguistically speaking, because its sibling <progressive> was a positive and sought after state. Thus having my interest thus piqued, I felt an investigation was in order.

So <aggression> is the act of “stepping up against something”; one could say “standing up for oneself”. In earlier times it implied “an approach, the courage to meet adversity” but as happens often in English, it suffered a pejorative effect around 1611 and has come to mean an "unprovoked attack". The Latin aggredī, from which aggressāre was derived, had the duel denotation of “attack, approach”. And then the psychologists got hold of the word and that was the end of it: the psychological sense of "hostile or destructive behavior" was first recorded 1912 in A.A. Brill's translation of Freud. The use of the adjectival form <aggressive> was first recorded in 1824.

The Denotation of <assertive>:

By contrast the word <assertion> was an earlier word that originally denoted “the act of making claim, joining issue”. The term came into English in 1424 again via Old French. The idea behind the word was that of "joining oneself" to a particular view, and, in so doing, one "claimed" or "maintained" it. The term <assertiveness> meaning "tendency toward self-assertion" is from 1881.

In English, no two words can have the same meaning. If by some chance they do, one will either fall out of use or modify its meaning. In the case of <aggress> and <assert>. It appears that one <assert> assimilated the meaning of the other <aggress> and took on the idea of “standing up for oneself”, even though its original denotation implied simply “a joining to”.

Is it better to be aggressive or assertive? The very idea of “joining, binding, or putting to” an adversary is, to me, anathema. I lament the passing of the early denotation of <aggress> and so from now on I will stick to the Old English words and “step to, stand forward, step against” that which comes against me.