I caught myself saying, “teed off” the other day — and — I wasn’t playing golf. I used the term because something had annoyed me for some reason. If I had been playing golf and just hit my golf ball from a tee when starting a hole, I’d have teed off. But the fact that something had just annoyed me that had nothing to do with golf, I wondered why I was “teed off.”
I think this is an idiom… which (I think) are expressions or figures of speech that stand for something other than what is being said. I know you’re expecting my extensive research to kick in about now and for me to offer up a plausible explanation of why we sometimes say we’re teed off when we’re angry, disgusted, or annoyed. But I’m really not in the extensive research mood today… I think I’ll just sit here and see if any other idioms for anger pop into my head.
I’ve heard of going postal, a bad hair day, blowing your stack, and biting someone’s head off. Then there’s hot under the collar, up in arms, bent out of shape, fit to be tied, doing a slow burn and seeing red. I’ve heard that people go off the deep end or go up the wall or fly off the handle or blow their top and sometimes they scream bloody murder.
I guess if you’re teed off, ticked off or fly off the handle for some reason, you just need to say something — and I have to admit, using terms like these that don’t have anything to do with the situation is better than cursing. I remember growing up in Oklahoma, to break myself of using “bad words” when angry, I used names of cities or towns in Oklahoma — like Tishomingo, Tahlequah, Anadarko, Eufaula, or Chicasha….
For some reason, when we’re frustrated, we need to express that feeling verbally — I think it doesn’t matter too much what you say…..
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