Notes: "Annoying"

Salam

The other day I was teaching BEL120 when a group of students asked me about the word "annoying".

Here's the thing, when we say something is annoying, for example:

"Can you stop tapping your foot on the floor?"
"Why?"
"It's annoying."

From the situation up there, we can say that annoying refers to the tapping right?

What happens if I change that a bit?

"I'm annoyed."
"Why are you annoyed?"
"I'm annoyed because you can not stop tapping your foot."

There is a difference right?

• When I say "It's annoying", it means I'm saying the tapping is annoying.
• When I say "I'm annoyed" or "I feel annoyed", it means I feel disturbed....but you don't know why I feel disturbed.

However, if you say:

"I'm annoying", it only turns into something else because I'm calling myself "annoying" which isn't good. It's like I'm undermining myself with negative titles or calling myself bad names.

Study how these two words are used: "annoyed" n "annoying".

It's not that hard. Seriously, it's a piece of cake. You can even find such information from your dictionaries.

Good luck!