Ask HN: What is it called when person attributes their opinion to some 3d party?

1 pointthrowaway260613 comments

A manager in my company keeps using this trick where she would say " I received some comments/questions about what you did/said, can you explain?". I am 100% sure it's coming from her but she has no guts to say it.

I would like to call her out on it but I don't know how this trick is called. Are there any names for it?

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Maybe a kind of argument ad verecundiam[0]?

[0] https://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/authority.html

Thank you, it's a great lead! I found this to be very close: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Anonymo...

but it's still not exactly that.

Maybe a term for what I mean simply doesn't exist.

I would simply call it deflecting responsibility.

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