Native English Expressions: Losing Your Temper

E314: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast, your essential listening resource for intermediate to advanced English learners. I'm Anna, your host, guiding you through the fascinating nuances of native English expressions.

😡 In this episode, we dive into the colourful ways native speakers describe losing their temper. Expect an array of advanced vocabulary and idioms peppered throughout our discussion, so keep your ears sharp!

💣 We'll explore expressions like "lose your rag," "see the red mist," and "blow a fuse," providing vivid examples and engaging anecdotes. Ever wondered why people "chuck their toys out of the pram" or "go off on one"? We'll break down these expressions and more, offering insight into their meanings providing examples.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast, the listening resource for intermediate to advanced-level English learners. My name is Anna, and in this podcast episode, we're going to focus on what native speakers say when they describe someone losing their temper. There will be lots of advanced vocabulary peppered throughout the episode, so listen out for it. Transcripts, vocabulary lists, and Bonus episodes are available. Please see the link in the show notes. Now, it's not easy to keep calm. I know that for a fact. I'm thinking about every weekday morning when there must be thousands of us, who are just trying to get our children to school on time. You know what you're up against. Getting dressed takes an eternity, then breakfast ends up on the clothes that they have finally been persuaded to put on. After that, you have the ironically named rush hour traffic to contend with, or the fact that you have to stop and look at every single stone or insect along the way if you are walking. I know. There are far greater problems in the world than this, but sometimes it's the small things that act as a trigger for us to shoot out all the rage that has been building up inside us about other things. So, when was the last time you lost your rag or chucked your toys out of the pram? Have you ever seen the red mist descending or hit the roof for any reason? If you aren't familiar with any of these expressions, then you are about to learn something new and very native. If you know them already, then there's plenty of content for you to enjoy regardless. In a nutshell, they all refer to the act of losing your temper. I don't know about you, but I seem to have so many conversations with people telling me about how so and so got angry over nothing, whether it be their boss, their husband or wife, someone they don't even know, someone in a car, someone in a shop. The list of people who seem to want to chuck their toys out of the pram just goes on and on. If you think about this expression, then it's a really fitting image to describe someone whose frustration has grown so much that they can't keep it inside anymore. They behave like a baby who is so limited in their power to deal with whatever is bothering them, that they have to release their pent-up rage like a baby in a pram who throws their toys out. I'm sure that you have been witness to this type of behaviour on more than one occasion. But what about you yourself? Be honest. There must have been a time when you lost your rag. Now, a rag is a piece of old cloth, so I'm not exactly sure what the connection between losing a piece of old cloth and becoming angry is, but that's what it means. Just as you can lose your temper with someone, you can also lose your rag with someone, even if you don't mean to. It's often the people closest to us who bear the brunt of our lost tempers. These are the people that we typically spend the most time with, but we might also unconsciously understand that it is much safer to go off on one with someone that we know well and who is likely to forgive us. This must be one of the strangest of our expressions. To go off on one. A phrasal verb containing two prepositions, as well as a mysterious noun. One what? Well, it means to spontaneously start expressing yourself in an angry way. I have to say that I sometimes come across videos of people doing this on social media feeds. It's usually got something to do with minor parking or motoring infractions, real or imagined. Usually, someone walks up to the driver's window with barely concealed anger and asks them to wind their window down. It doesn't take long before they blow a fuse and start ranting and raving at the person holding the mobile. If you know even a little bit about the electrics in your home or building, then you'll know that when the circuit is overloaded it's it can blow a fuse. In this expression, we're imagining a person as if they were powered by electricity and the charge has got so high that we ourselves have blown a fuse. The expression to rant and rave is one of the types that we like in English where, for added emphasis, we put two verbs together that mean more or less the same thing, like huff and puff or dig and delve. To rant and rave means to talk loudly and angrily in an uncontrolled way. I sometimes think this is why football was invented, as many spectators seem to rant and rave in such an exaggerated and irrational way that they must be trying to get something out of their systems. Talking of football, it's not only the spectators who suffer from this. One phrase for losing one's temper that always comes to mind was a description of what, ahem, occasionally happened to legendary Manchester United footballer Roy Keane. Keane was an extremely committed and competitive player. He was said to cover every blade of grass on the pitch in his desire to lead by example. This, shall we call it enthusiasm, sometimes got the better of him and transformed into aggressive and even violent actions. During one of these occasions, when Keane lashed out at an opponent, a commentator remarked that the red mist had descended upon him. Perhaps because the colour of Manchester United's shirt is typically red, someone made an apt connection. You can also say that someone sees the red mist. The label stuck and in fact there is even a book called'Red Mist' written about the time when Keane was so angry with the facilities that had been arranged for the Ireland team at the 2002 Football World Cup that he simply packed his bags and came back home to calm down by going for a walk with his dogs, leaving his team and his chances of playing in a World Cup behind him. Sometimes you have to know when to bite your tongue. Not literally, of course. It's an idiom that means that you keep your opinion to yourself when you're involved in a conversation because you don't want to say something that might offend or provoke someone else. You can also take a deep breath as a way of avoiding saying something that you might regret later. What do you do when you want to keep things civil? To stop yourself from losing your temper? Sometimes there's nothing we or anyone else can do, and we fly off the handle, go berserk, go nuts, hit the roof, or have a meltdown. All of these expressions refer to those moments of pure anger or total disbelief about what is happening or being said and you just can't help but go ballistic. There's a related behaviour that can sometimes feel quite beneficial. It's less spontaneous and it's called blowing off steam or venting. You could even consider it to be one of the great pleasures in life. To be able to sit down with someone over a cup of tea or a pint of beer and really get something off your chest. You know what I'm talking about. Trouble at home, at work. The state of the country, or the town you live in, and nobody's doing anything about it. These three expressions can all be used to describe the same action. It's not exactly the same as losing your temper, true. In fact, it might actually help you to avoid losing your rag when you are confronted with the issues that you are venting about. Well, now you are armed with plenty of ways to express what happens when you or someone else cannot keep their cool or fails to maintain their composure. In a way, I hope that you won't need these expressions, but it's better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, then please take a moment to leave a like, a rating or review. And until next time, take very good care and goodbye.