Really cross

[Hingeandbracket]

Is this a regional expression?

I keep seeing it on here and I always imagine it being said in a Southern English accent.

It sounds like a refugee from a 1950s Ealing Comedy.

I associate it with the south east of England too. Middle class.

I thought 'cross' was used everywhere in the UK. I'm from Yorkshire and it's always been a common phrase- especially in the context of children when you don't want to swear! 'Mummy's very cross with you!' etc.

Isn't 'cross' used right across the country?

Slowing with being really cross, quiet cross, fairly cross, etc.

I'm in South Yorkshire and it's used here lots.

Interested to hear from anyone in NI...

I didn't think cross was a regional thing.
I'm from Yorkshire and it's used there.

I was born and brought up in Newcastle and we certainly said and say really cross as indeed would my Southern children. It ju st mean very cross. I am really cross with you - the sort of thing mothers say and children often run off laughing....

It is so normal to me that it is as if you are querying words like house, table, bed! Is it the word cross you find odd or coupling it with really?

I thought it was upper class? We say I'm really fucked off!!

I'm from the north west and I've never heard it said here.
My parents never said it and I've never heard one of my friends say it.

Often teamed with 'ever so' here

Mum'll be ever so cross

I'm in North Staffordshire and don't think I have ever used the word cross, with or without really in front of it. I can't say that I've heard other people use it either.

It,s not a saying it,s just one expressing an imootion with out resorting to swearing and insults.

The trouble with pissed off or fucked off is it is quite a wide term and within that you could be merely annoyed, quite cross, really cross, very cross indeed, angry, incensed, fuming...

I say it a lot... I’m in the Midlands. It’s just a cleaner way of saying ‘I’m pissed off’.
To be honest though I mainly say it to my children.

It certainly is used in Scotland too, I didn't realise it wasn't a totally normal thing to say!

You crazy England guys with your mad ways

It is very normal.

It's sounds a bit childish, I've always thought. I imagine someone stamping their foot, rather than getting really genuinely angry.

I have always said "cross" and I'm not even from the UK; I'm American from the southwestern US. My mother said it all the time and her first language was Spanish. She attended school in the 1940's and I remember it being a word we learned from textbooks when I was a child in the 70's. Two of my three children went to school in England so they've used it too. One went to school in Berkshire and the other in Greater Manchester. My youngest attended school in a different area than I did and she's never used it. Perhaps it's to do with age ?

I actually realized I said it to my grandchildren yesterday. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Cross is not as pissed off as properly angry, but stronger than annoyed. Really cross is getting towards fuming but not quite.

Yorkshire. Say/hear it all the time.

Northern. Permutations of crossness very normal here.

My Mum and Grandma would be vexed.

gets used here (Liverpool)

if you are not yet quite "feeew-min"

pissed off could be experienced as merely annoyed, upset, dejected, sad

crossness implies a degree of anger IMHO

I’d say annoyed I think.

I do hear it as an old fashioned or very posh word (like ‘horrid’), or trying to not say ‘pissed off’. Can’t imagine saying it at work in a grown up environment.

I'm in Scotland and I use it. But thinking about it I would tend to use it to refer to children. I wouldn't say an adult was cross but a 4 year old- yes. In the same way as a baby might be fussy

It's an understated way of saying you're pissed off.