To laugh when people describe themselves as "cross"?

[mangoespadrille]

I don't know why, but I always find it really funny. It makes me imagine an uptight, repressed middle class woman in twinset and pearls who cannot allow herself to express emotions properly. If you're angry, get angry! Say that you're pissed off, furious, enraged...cross is such a wet lettuce word.

Yanbu! I don't get cross, I get fizzing Or RAGING

I get cross with my kids and pissed off with grown ups. I have occasionally told exp that I was cross with him, his laughter usually defused the situation.

Oh yes I agree. Definitely a primary school word. Can't imagine saying it to the secondary classes or even upper primary. Hadn't thought about it that much before really.

Yes I say it to the children.

They run away screaming if I'm 'angry'

Now I hate fizzing! It makes me think of someone in a state of high excitement or positive emotion - can't get used to it as a synonym for anger at all. Is that what it generally means now?

I do feel cross fairly often & think I use the word, too - but am going to try to change it to vexed after reading this thread. How can I have ignored vexed for all these years?

Am also pissed off & fucked off far too often, though not in front of children.

"Cross" is a great word to convey displeasure in a dignified manner , but I have replaced it with 'irked' and 'irksome'.
Thank you Bolt for that one!

I've read the word 'cross' so much on this thread that it's lost all meaning and looks weird this is vexing me

I use it about my baby, as in "DS just got so cross when I changed his nappy that he pissed in his own face".

I say it to the kids at work too whilst pointing at my face and scowling.

That aside, I quite liked the saying someone was feeling "stabby" on here, could totally relate to it.

I just see it so much on MN and the whole impetus of the thread is lost with the use of the word, eg "AIBU to be cross with DH for having 14 affairs, gambling away the mortgage payment, letting the DC play with a chainsaw and punching me in the face when I objected?" Get angry, woman!

It's very English We don't really say it in Glasgow. "Yer cross? Cross whit? Cross eyed?"

Which is worse:

I feel cross that dh has been shagging his pa in my bed for three years

Or

I am fucking enraged that dh forgot to send a christmas card to his third cousin.

?

That's P.A not pa.

Pa would make me very cross indeed.

"Horrid* makes me laugh too.
Does anyone actually say that?

JohnFarleysRuskin I am not ashamed to admit that I'm a drama queen who loves a bit of hyperbole. I have no sympathy for the former and can really relate to the latter. English is a wonderful, rich language full of brilliant words...cross just doesn't cut the mustard in my book!

Dementedma horrid is definitely on the twee list.

I like "cross" too - it's got a lovely old-fashioned, Enid Blyton feel about it. "Horrid" is another one of the same type. I use them both, but with an inner sense of irony.

I say cross. Year 10 laugh at me when I say it I need to come up with some more adventurous vocabulary for the same thing.

X post with dementedma!

Oh, I like irked too.

at DH shagging his pa.

It is terribly English isn't it [cross] to have so many words for angry? I bet in most other languages there is no equivalent for vexed and disgruntled

Exasperating!

It's not English. Both Euphemia and I are Scottish teachers and we use it. Quite common in most schools I work in - granted I have never worked in Glasgow, or indeed the West.

Yabu. Twat.

I use cross now and then.

On the angryness scale, I'd consider it to be on about the same level as annoyed or irritated. Furious or enraged are much angrier words.