I will try not to bias this question. What do you think?

Question:
Someone used the phrase, "I'm a little irritated" and the reader translated it to mean, "I'm upset." Of course they aren't exactly the same, but, to you, how close are they?

Choices:
Nearly identical; I'd use either.
Quite similar, though not completely.
Slightly similar, but also different.
Quite different; I can't see how they're similar.
Are you nuts? They are very dissimilar!

 

Please vote for me. You will help settle an argument I am having, which I will elaborate on later.

Thank you!

When you elaborate later, Kalleh, will you tell us how to vote for you? Will you provide a poll with such choices as "For Kalleh," and "Against Kalleh" ?

Or when you wrote "Please vote for me," did you mean "Do me the favor expressing your own opinion by voting" ??

I'm neither irritated nor upset -- just confused.

~~~~ jerry

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Please vote for me. Thank you!

You got it. President Kalleh has a good ring to it.

Tinman

Okay, boys, you can stop teasing me now.

I should have said, "Please do me the favor of voting"...or something similar.

I will spill all when it's done, Jerry, and it involves a fellow Wordcrafter.

My vote would be...

They could mean the same or very similar things, but very often don't.

I won't be pigeonholed into your categories

quote:

You got it. President Kalleh has a good ring to it.

Well, it's beginning to look as though the next President will be from Illinois...

Oh, Myth, I need the votes...go with your gut!

Some people have to be pretty upset for them to admit out loud that they are "a little irritated." If the "speaker" or the setting tends to be deferential then the reader may very well be correct. On the other hand, if you can be honest about expressing your feelings, then I would think "a little irritated" warns that if the situation does not improve, then the speaker will likely get upset.

So does your reader have any reason to make the call one way or the other?

Okay, I see your point. It does depend on the speaker and the context.

In another thread I posted that I was "a little" irritated about something. Richard translated that as my being "upset." To me, they are very different. "A little irritated" is how I feel when there's a fly buzzing around me. I am "upset" when I find that my mother has cancer or when 9/11 happens or something much more important than the irritation of a buzzing fly.

Dictionary.com's Random House Unabridged says that upset means "to disturb mentally or emotionally; perturb." That's how I'd generally use it. Similarly from the same dictionary, the first definition for irritated is "to excite to impatience or anger; annoy." Of course, the "little" was meant to decrease the "annoyance" or "anger." Still, I hadn't meant "anger" in any way. My irritation was similar to the fly buzzing around me.

In reviewing the dictionary and the responses to this poll, I suppose I have to say that Richard is right. I should have chosen my words more carefully.

Thanks all!

quote:

In reviewing the dictionary and the responses to this poll, I suppose I have to say that Richard is right. I should have chosen my words more carefully.

depending on my dictionary "I'm a little irritated" means "I'm a little upset"
so for me they are similar.

For me "irritated" carries a degree of anger or annoyance whereas "upset" carries a degree of sorrow or sadness.

quote:

depending on my dictionary "I'm a little irritated" means "I'm a little upset"
so for me they are similar.

But, Meshal, the actual quote was not "I'm a little upset. These 2 phrases were equated: 1) I'm a little irritated & 2) I'm upset.

Interesting, Bob, because the whole discussion with Richard arose based on your comments in that Snopes discussion. I had said I was a "little irritated" and then you had said, "I don't see why you're upset." I didn't and still don't think the 2 equate, though I see that my fellow posters don't agree with me. Such is life.

quote:

I had said I was a "little irritated" and then you had said, "I don't see why you're upset." I didn't and still don't think the 2 equate

One of the problems with any word that describes a human emotion or feeling is that we can only interpret the word by our own experience. So any such word will be "filtered" through our own personalities and can never be an absolute.

To stay away from the "upset" versus "irritated" discussion for the moment, just consider the word "hungry". In the wealthy countries in which we most of us live, we use the expression hungry, or even "starving" to describe a relatively mild sensation of wanting food. We none of us have probably experienced true hunger and thus our own interpretation will be significantly different from that of the huge numbers of unfortunates who have never been properly fed. Should we be discussing hunger with a representative of that unfortunate majority, we must be aware that the sensation we are discussing will probably be different for each of us.

It is as well for us to be mindful of this "filtration effect" when we draw inferences from others' words.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Interesting, Bob, because the whole discussion with Richard arose based on your comments in that Snopes discussion. I had said I was a "little irritated" and then you had said, "I don't see why you're upset." I didn't and still don't think the 2 equate, though I see that my fellow posters don't agree with me. Such is life.

I agree with you. When I used it before I was doing what all writers do, I was varying my vocabulary. Now I am concentrating on the precise meanings of the two words (something we don't do quite as intensely in less formal communication such as a message board).

I don't think the words are synonyms. But then I don't think there are any true synonyms.

Now see, if I had known that you were the speaker, Kalleh, I would have reasoned that you are outspoken enough to say what you really mean. Therefore, I wouldn't think you would say irritated and actually be upset.

quote:

But then I don't think there are any true synonyms.

That is interesting, Bob. Have we discussed this before here? I don't recall that we have. I see your point, though, and have been sitting here trying to think of some "real" synonyms.

Myth, I am not sure, but I will take that as a compliment. Thank you!

Richard, I think you make a good point about the problem of describing feelings and emotions. One thing I will admit to is that I had overreacted a bit in that Snopes thread. I suppose I didn't want our international friends to think that my fellow Chicagoans are such oafs that that they make fun of Katrina.

quote:

One thing I will admit to is that I had overreacted a bit in that Snopes thread.

I think it's sometimes good to hold strong feelings.

"Reasonable men adapt themselves to the world; unreasonable me try to adapt the world to themselves. Thus it follows that all progress depends on unreasonable men.

George Bernard Shaw."