Feeling angry

11th February 20256th February 2025 by theinterpretingcoach

This is a vocabulary-building post about feeling angry. I suppose if you’re interpreting at a conference, you’re more likely to hear expressions voicing mild anger or irritation, but in other settings, I can imagine people being furious.

Let’s get started with a game as a warm-up!

Idioms game

This is a word association game. Your task is to use the image as inspiration to help you find an idiom meaning ‘being angry/grumpy’. The idiom usually has 2-5 words, and if it’s a verb phrase (e.g. to fly into a rage), the first word is ‘to’ in the quiz, and the image might be a bird or a set of wings.

Get the idea? 😉

I’ve used the form ‘one’s’, where appropriate, rather than ‘your’ (for example, it would be ‘to blow one’s nose’ rather than ‘to blow your nose’).

These idioms are all pretty informal; I wouldn’t recommend using them in a conference settings, unless the speaker is being very casual.

Did you get the answers?

to blow one’s top: I told her what happened, and she blew her top.
to explode: When I told my mum the mark I got in my last Physics test, she exploded.
to lose one’s rag
to see red
foaming at the mouth
to go ballistic
to throw one’s toys out of the pram (= to have a temper tantrum)
to get hot under the collar (this can also mean to be embarrassed)

Idioms – brainstorming

Set a timer for 3 minutes, and see how many more idioms you can come up with meaning ‘to lose one’s temper’!

to blow up
to fly off the handle
to lose the plot
to lose it
to have a hissy fit
to throw a fit
to have a strop
to have/throw a paddy – interestingly, this appears to come from the word Paddy (from Patrick), meaning an Irishman; the idea being that Irishmen were easily riled. Some people find this idiom offensive because of the stereotype, others don’t really recognise the link with Ireland anymore. It’s certainly a British American idiom, rather than American English, and very colloquial.
to be fit to be tied (I was fit to be tied when I heard the news.)
to be hacked off
to go berserk
to fly into a rage
to lose one’s cool

Now let’s see how many adjectives you know to describe people who are bad-tempered. Most of these are British English, and you will need to unscramble the words.

tetchy – a very British word meaning someone who gets irritated easily. May have first been used by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet.
ratty – feeling annoyed (informal)
waspish – someone who makes cutting, cruel comments and sounds annoyed (or the comments themselves can be described as ‘waspish’). Nowadays, in a different register, we would say ‘bitchy’.
querulous – this means someone complaining or fretful (from the Latin queri, to complain) – quite an old-fashioned word
crotchety – this word is used to describe a person who is difficult or cranky. A common phrase would be ‘a crotchety old man’.
snappy
surly – collocates well with ‘teenagers’!!
fractious
cranky
exasperated

Quiz

What word for ‘furious’ is an adjective that originally meant black and blue, then pale, then red?
What word for ‘angry’ comes from the French (via Latin) meaning ‘to smoke’?
What old fashioned word for an ill-tempered person is an adjective describing one of the ‘humours’ (of which bilious is another)?
What word for ‘furiously angry’ could also be used to describe a light bulb?
What colloquial British English word meaning grumpy could also describe a rodent?
What adjective for ‘angry’ comes from a three-letter noun which is a synonym for ‘anger’?
What British English word for ‘grumpy’ may have been used first by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet in 1592?
What word for bad-tempered comes from the Latin word for ‘break’, ‘shatter’?
What British English word for ‘annoyed’, often used when talking to children, can be represented by this symbol: X ?

livid
fuming – informal
choleric – old-fashioned
incandescent (e.g. incandescent with rage)
ratty – informal
irate
tetchy
fractious
cross

Useful terms for meetings

Not all of the idioms and terms we’ve looked at so far are suitable for meeting situations, where people tend to be relatively diplomatic and avoid expressing very strong emotions. In general, some of the more colloquial idioms may not be formal enough – although it depends very much on the speaker’s style.

Here are some safe options for describing a feeling of irritation, rather than rage:

irritated
displeased
exasperated
put out
dismayed

And some options for saying that you’re very angry:

incensed – this is generally used about other people, rather than oneself, and has a tinge of being offended by someone’s words or actions, taking umbrage, e.g. She was incensed by the implication she hadn’t worked hard enough on the proposal.
furious
incandescent (often ‘incandescent with rage’) – this describes extreme anger
enraged
fuming – quite informal
livid
seething
infuriated (by…)
apopletic – this means ‘furiously angry’, so much so that it looks as if the top of his/her head is going to blow off! It comes from Ancient Greek via Latin, and means ‘to be disabled by a stroke’
beside oneself with rage
outraged

Of course, there are many other words and expressions, some of which are just too colloquial (or vulgar) for a meeting situation, e.g. pissed off.

Improvisation

Write a short letter to complain to a company about the terrible customer service you have received. Give details about what happened. Use several words or idioms that mean ‘angry’ or ‘furious’.

When you’ve finished, take a look at the example text.

I am writing to express my profound disappointment and frustration following my recent experience with your company. As a loyal customer, I am not only dissatisfied but downright infuriated by the treatment I received.

On 1st September, I contacted your customer service team regarding a faulty toaster. After waiting on hold for an excruciating 90 minutes, I finally spoke to a representative who seemed uninterested and dismissive of my concerns. Despite my attempts to explain the issue clearly, I was repeatedly interrupted and given vague answers that provided no resolution.

What has truly left me livid is that after being promised a follow-up within 3 days, I have heard absolutely nothing. I have since called back multiple times, only to encounter more unhelpful staff and endless transfers between departments. This level of incompetence and disregard is unacceptable.

I trusted your company to provide a certain standard of service, and this experience has shattered that trust. It is bewildering and maddening to feel so undervalued as a customer.

I demand an immediate response to this letter, as well as a clear explanation of what went wrong and how you intend to rectify the situation. A gesture of goodwill to address the inconvenience caused would also be appreciated.

Please understand that I am not just annoyed—I am outraged by the lack of professionalism and courtesy shown. If I do not receive a satisfactory resolution within two weeks, I will have no choice but to escalate this matter further.

I hope this letter serves as a wake-up call to improve the way you treat your customers.

Yours sincerely,

Now:

Rewrite either your text or the example text to make it more informal. Use plenty of appropriate idioms.
Rewrite your text or the example text to make it more formal.

Hi,

I’m writing because I’m absolutely fuming about how I’ve been treated by your company recently. Honestly, I’m at the end of my tether and feel like I’m talking to a brick wall every time I reach out.

On 3rd September, I contacted your customer service team about a faulty toaster. After waiting on hold for what felt like forever, I finally got through to someone who barely seemed to care about my problem. I tried to explain what was going on, but I kept getting cut off, and the answers I got were completely useless.

What really made my blood boil is that I was told someone would get back to me within 3 days, but here we are—nothing. Zilch. I’ve had to chase this up myself, only to be passed around like a hot potato between departments, and still no one’s helped me.

Frankly, I’m spitting feathers about this whole thing. I expected so much better from your company, and this has left a really bad taste in my mouth.

I need this sorted—pronto. I want a proper explanation of what’s gone wrong, what you’re going to do to fix it, and maybe a little something to make up for all the time and stress I’ve had to go through.

If I don’t hear back within 2 weeks, I’ll have to take things further, which is the last thing I want to do—but I will if I have to.

I really hope you take this seriously and start treating your customers properly.

Thanks,

Note how many idioms there are in this version. This supports the idea that idioms are often informal.

MORE FORMAL

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to formally raise my concerns about the unsatisfactory level of customer service I have recently experienced with your company. I am deeply disappointed and feel compelled to express my dissatisfaction in the hope that appropriate measures will be taken to address this matter.

On 3rd September, I contacted your customer service department regarding a faulty toaster. Despite waiting for an extended period to speak to an agent, the response I received was cursory and lacked the professionalism I had expected. My attempts to explain the nature of the issue were met with minimal engagement, and the advice provided was both vague and unhelpful.

I was assured during this interaction that my concerns would be escalated and that I would receive a resolution within 3 days. Regrettably, no such follow-up has occurred. Instead, I have been required to contact your company multiple times, during which I was transferred between departments without any clear resolution. This process has not only been inefficient but has also caused considerable frustration.

I must express my dismay at the lack of communication and accountability demonstrated throughout this ordeal. It is entirely unacceptable that as a loyal customer, I have been treated in such an unprofessional and dismissive manner.

I respectfully request a detailed explanation of the delays and lack of resolution, along with a prompt and effective solution to my original issue. Furthermore, I expect a gesture of goodwill to compensate for the inconvenience and time lost as a result of this situation.

Please respond to this letter within two weeks with your proposed actions to resolve this matter. Should I not hear back, I will be left with no choice but to escalate my complaint to the relevant consumer protection authorities.

Yours faithfully,

Note how much milder the formal version is.

I hope you enjoyed these exercises!

p.s. The word fractious is a very common term to describe political parties that argue, debates that are ill-tempered, etc.

Here are some examples from The Guardian:

“Thought for the Day” boring? So why does it provoke such fractious debate?

This is just one instance of the power of drawings, and their role in the often fractious relationship between architect and client

Fractious EU summit rejects Franco-German plan for Putin talks

But the EU, fragmented, disputatious and wounded to an extent unusual even by its fractious standards, is taking one day at a time.

Idioms involving hands

31st January 2024 by theinterpretingcoach

There are so many expressions containing the word hands (and feet!). How well do you know them?

Exercise 1

Grab a pen and paper (or just type into your Notes app or similar).

How many idioms and expressions can you think of containing the word hand or hands?

Hang onto your list, as you’ll need it soon!

Exercise 2

Can you fill in the blanks with a suitable expression? They all contain the word hand(s).

“Why can’t you move the meeting to the following week? It would be much more convenient.” “I’m afraid my _______________. This was the only day the Village Hall was available to rent for our club meeting.”
“Now I’ve shown you round the antimatter factory, I’ll leave you in my assistant’s _________________ for a tour of the Large Hadron Collider.”
Veronica Walker is best known for writing a book about consecutive note-taking, but did you know she also _____________ in designing the SCIC Speech Repository? [note: this sentence is completely made up!]
“You think we should collaborate with our political opponents on this project. I wouldn’t __________ the idea _________; it could definitely work to our advantage.”
I think anyone who tries to lecture young people about the dangers of drugs needs to have experienced them ________________.
The current owner of the bank is Swiss, but the company has________________ six times in the past decade.

“Why can’t you move the meeting to the following week? It would be much more convenient.” “I’m afraid my hands are tied. This was the only day the Village Hall was available to rent for our club meeting.”
“Now I’ve shown you round the antimatter factory, I’ll leave you in my assistant’s capable hands for a tour of the Large Hadron Collider.”
Veronica Walker is best known for writing a book about consecutive note-taking, but did you know she also had a hand in designing the SCIC Speech Repository? [note: this sentence is completely made up!]
“You think we should collaborate with our political opponents on this project. I wouldn’t dismiss the idea out of hand; it could definitely work to our advantage.”
I think anyone who tries to lecture young people about the dangers of drugs needs to have experienced them firsthand.
The current owner of the bank is Swiss, but the company has changed hands six times in the past decade.

Exercise 3

I’ve given you some definitions; can you fill in the appropriate expressions containing the word hand(s)?

to help someone	??????????????
to get out of control
to be very busy with something
to have a go at something (e.g. a sport)
by far (e.g. ‘it’s by far the best thing I’ve tasted’)
to act on your own initiative, to act off your own bat (because no-one else is)
to be experienced at doing something
to admit that someone deserves praise or credit

to help someone	to lend/give someone a hand
to get out of control	to get out of hand
to be very busy with something	to have your hands full with something
to have a go at something (e.g. a sport)	to try your hand at
by far (e.g. ‘it’s by far the best thing I’ve tasted’)	hands down
to act on your own initiative, to act off your own bat (because no-one else is)	to take matters into your own hands
to be experienced at doing something	to be an old hand
to admit that someone deserves praise or credit	“I have to hand it to you”

Exercise 4

Can you match the explanation to the idiom?

to harm someone who is good to you or does things to help you	to be caught with your hand in the cookie jar
it’s better to have a small (but certain) advantage than the possibility of a bigger one	to live from hand to mouth
to be caught doing something wrong or illegal or to be caught stealing something (often money)	a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
not to know where your next meal is coming from; to survive on little money	to bite the hand that feeds you

to harm someone who is good to you or does things to help you	to bite the hand that feeds you
it’s better to have a small (but certain) advantage than the possibility of a bigger one	a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
to be caught doing something wrong or illegal or to be caught stealing something (often money)	to be caught with your hand in the cookie jar
not to know where your next meal is coming from; to survive on little money	to live from hand to mouth

At hand, to hand, on hand?

There are subtle distinctions here, complicated by differences between American English and British English.

To hand seems to be more common in British English. To me, it means an object that is physically nearby in case I need it:

“Keep your mobile phone to hand in case you need to take some photos.”

At hand means close in time or space. American English users would probably use at hand where I would say to hand. To me, it can mean something like ‘imminent’ or ‘it’s coming’ (‘retaliation is at hand’, ‘help is at hand’).

On hand means something closer to ‘available, nearby’: ‘The emergency services were on hand to give advice about heat exhaustion’.

Honestly, the distinctions are so small that it’s probably not worth worrying about whether you’re getting it wrong.

A poem to finish

Do you know this poem, one of my favourites, by Percy Bysshe Shelley?

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Efficient or effective?

28th January 2024 by theinterpretingcoach

Terrible-twosome-efficient-or-effective

An exercise to help you choose between efficient and effective

28th January 2024 by theinterpretingcoach

These two adjectives (and their equivalent adverbs) are so difficult to use correctly.

I hope you have had a chance to read my vocabulary sheet.

In today’s exercise, you are going to practise making sentences using either efficient or effective.

Efficient or effective?

NOUNS	VERBS
communications	want
distribution network	deliver
engine	make
use of	implement
resources	use
attack	take
solutions	be responsible for
argument	be
action	help
policy	develop
strategy	prove
speech	discovery
process	become
administration	appear
technique
transport system
drugs
marketing tools
postal service

Above is your smorgasbord of options for creating sentences. Your task is to pick one noun and one verb, and craft five sentences (or ten, if you’re feeling keen). Each sentence must contain either the word effective, or the word efficient, depending which one is appropriate in context.

For example, your sentence might be:

The UK does not have a very efficient transport system.

Of course you can make your sentences far longer and more elaborate than that!

Improving your formal register (part 1)

28th January 2024 by theinterpretingcoach

Most of my readers and clients are conference interpreters. The types of meetings we interpret at usually call for a neutral-ish register, sometimes with elements of formality or technical vocabulary.

In general, I have found that my coaching clients sometimes struggle with everyday, colloquial language, but they don’t often have to produce that sort of register at work; whereas a formal register is important when interpreting politicians’ speeches, inaugural addresses, prize-giving ceremonies, etc.

This is why I’ve chosen to focus on improving your formal register.

Hallmarks of formal register in speech

There are certain elements of syntax and vocabulary that mark speech (and writing) as being either towards the formal end of the spectrum, or closer to the informal end.

Exercise 1: brainstorming

I’m sure you can think of some of these features. Take a minute to write down everything you can think of that indicates formality in English (it may not be the same as in your A language; for example, the ‘tu/vous’ or ‘du/Sie’ distinction may be a very obvious way to show formality in your A language, but it doesn’t exist in English).

Exercise 2: comparing texts

Find two articles about the same subject, one from a tabloid (The Sun, The Mirror, The Star), and one from a broadsheet such as The Guardian or the Financial Times.

Use a highlighter to go through the two articles, picking out expressions you consider to be particularly formal or informal. Think about how the two publications talk about the same thing, and what linguistic devices they use. See if you can add to your list or table of formal/informal features (that you started in exercise 1).

I’ve suggested two articles (below), but you can of course find your own!

Keir Starmer vows to FREEZE council tax bills – days before Brits hit with massive hike

Keir Starmer will tomorrow unveil a major promise to freeze council tax bills.

Launching Labour’s local election campaign in Swindon, it is the “party of lower taxes for working people”.

As households face a hike in bills on Saturday, he will say he would use a windfall tax on oil and gas giants to stop them rising this year if he was in power.

Average council tax bills are set to exceed £2,000 for the first time as families are clobbered with a 5.1% increase.

The average Band D council tax set by local authorities in England for 2023-24 will be £2,065 – a rise of £99 on the 2022-23 figure of £1,966.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has allowed cash-strapped councils to bring in the whopping increases as they struggle with government cuts.

Previously, town, city and county halls could only increase bills by 3% without a referendum.

At Labour’s local election launch on Thursday, Mr Starmer will say: “If there was a Labour Government, you could take that council tax rise you just got and rip it up.”

Taking aim at Rishi Sunak’s plan to hand a tax cut to those with the biggest pension pots, he will say: “A Labour Government would freeze your council tax this year – that’s our choice.

Labour would freeze council tax for one year, says Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer has pledged to use an extended windfall tax to freeze council tax for one year as Labour kicked off its local election campaign on Thursday.

Days before millions of people in England see their council tax bills rise by 5% in April, the Labour leader challenged Rishi Sunak to use “the money that is already on the table” and introduce the tax cut tomorrow.

However, Starmer would not commit to freezing council tax if Labour won the next general election.

In the local elections on 4 May more than 8,000 council seats will be contested across 84 metropolitan, unitary and district councils in England, as well as four English mayoralties.

Calling the prime minister “Mr 1%”, Starmer said at an event in Swindon that the Conservatives would always promise “tax cuts for the richest 1% while working people pay the problem, but this has to change”.

Starmer insisted the government had the money to freeze council tax bills but was choosing not to. Speaking alongside Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves, he said Labour’s council tax cut “matches the ambition” of communities that wanted change but were being failed by the Conservative government.

The Guardian understands that Labour would fund the council tax cut using its proposed extended windfall tax that the Conservatives did not adopt in full.

Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said the council tax cut pledge showed a clear difference between who the prime minister stood for and who Labour represented.

Labour sees the 4 May poll as an opportunity to road-test some its policy ideas on NHS waiting lists and safer streets, as well as the cost of living crisis, rather than just going on the attack.

What does your list or table look like? Here’s what I picked up on in the two articles above:

Text 1: more INFORMAL. Words in capitals; emotive language; vocabulary like ‘cash-strapped’, ‘a hike’, ‘clobbered with’.
Text 2: more FORMAL. Longer sentences; more indirect sentence structure; vocabulary like ‘to be contested’, ‘to adopt in full’.

And here is my table:

Table of hallmarks of register

LOWER REGISTER	MORE FORMAL REGISTER
Vulgarity, swear words
Fillers (I mean, you know, like, so)
Contractions	Full forms
Idioms?
Phrasal verbs	Latin or Greek roots
Active verb form	Passive verb forms
Abbreviations	Full form
Short Anglo-Saxon words (do, hit, put, look, give, run, jump, buy)	Latin or Greek origins

Common words	specialised or technical words
Direct questions	Indirect questions
Simple sentences	Long sentences, complex grammar (subordination)
Question tags
Lots of; loads of; make, do, get, nice, good	“A great deal of”, “many”; more precise vocabulary
more personal	More impersonal
Sloppy pronunciation, glottal stops	Clear enunciation

The exercises I’ve focused on so far aim to improve your awareness of register.

To make improvements in your formal register, you will need to do three things (concurrently, if you like):

improve your awareness
do some vocabulary-building
activate your new expressions

I can’t cover them all in a single post, so I’ll suggest two more exercises to work on awareness:

pure shadowing (i.e. simultaneously repeating what a speaker is saying). Pick a speech in English that you know to be formal because of the setting (an academic conference, a speech by a Head of State, etc.) and shadow it. Get used to saying some of the more formal phrases out loud. Write down any useful phrases.
highlighting useful phrases: choose a text that you know is formal, for example an article in an academic journal, an opinion piece in a reputable publication, or the transcript of a politician’s speech. You may need some help from a native speaker, because some journalistic writing in English isn’t actually that formal. Go through the text with a highlighter, picking out formal collocations or phrases. Have a think about what you might have used instead – would you have chosen a more informal option? Note down 3 or 4 formal phrases and make up some example sentences to say out loud.

I hope this post has given you some ideas! More on register soon…

Idioms game

Idioms – brainstorming

Quiz

Useful terms for meetings

Improvisation

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

Exercise 4

At hand, to hand, on hand?

A poem to finish

Efficient or effective?

Hallmarks of formal register in speech

Exercise 1: brainstorming

Exercise 2: comparing texts

Keir Starmer vows to FREEZE council tax bills – days before Brits hit with massive hike

Labour would freeze council tax for one year, says Keir Starmer

Table of hallmarks of register

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