# Today's word usage pet peeve: "temper"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 19, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328 "2013-06-19T04:16:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2013, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/41 "2013-10-13T19:42:26Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> Some people say, “Oh, he has a temper!” when they mean “an inability to control anger.” But temper means “the ability to control emotional volatility.” Someone says, “He has a terrible temper” and someone who doesn’t know the word assumes from context that it means “a terrible tendency to get angry” instead of a “terrible inability to control anger.” So that “temper” is then used alone, in the opposite of its original meaning.
>
> (Many of my word usage pet peeves are words that begin to take on the opposite meaning **due to misunderstanding and misuse**.)
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> I was lamenting that through frequent misuse over a long time, the word has come to mean the opposite of its original meaning. That is why you were able to find such a definition in a descriptive source. (See also: _comprise_)
>
> I referenced your post because someone said they were not familiar with that usage, so I provided an example. (I think it turned out they meant that they were not familiar with the \*original \*meaning.)
How many words do you research to find the original usage and rigidly stick to that no matter how many hundreds of years have gone by?
Temper is frequently, and correctly used to mean the tendency of someone to become angry. It is overly pedantic to attempt to restrict the usage to a time from before you were born.
It is not incorrect to use temper to mean being angry. It is silly to lament something which you could not possibly experience. It must be terribly frustrating to live in a changing world.
If you are claiming to not be criticizing me personally, why link to my thread?
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/42 "2013-10-13T19:57:35Z")
Out of curiosity, I just checked the OED. Here’s the first quote they have for “temper” being used to mean “ill-tempered”:
1828 Webster Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang., Temper…5. Heat of mind or passion; irritation. The boy showed a great deal of temper when I reproved him. So we say, a man of violent temper, when we speak of his irritability. (This use of the word is common, though a deviation from its original and genuine meaning.)
So while it may be “a deviation from its original and genuine meaning”, this usage was common enough to show up in standard dictionaries 185 years ago.
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/43 "2013-10-13T20:26:14Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> People, this is a tongue-in-cheek rant. There are no battles, twisted panties, or cleavage involved. Let’s just have a little fun.
Enough about the grammar nitpicking. I want to find out about the battles, twisted panties, and cleavage!
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2013, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/44 "2013-10-13T21:24:00Z")
OK folks, apparently everybody enjoys a good fight, even where one doesn’t exist. Yes, of \*course \*language changes. Fer crissake _everything_ changes. I’m not trying to repeal _Roe v. Wade_ here. I was just making a curmudgeonly observation in a forum that I perceive as friendly. Next time I will add several smiley faces. Can’t a guy be a little grumpy?
Everybody has their own pet peeves, and we all have our right to them. By definition they are things that don’t bug other people as much. I’m also annoyed that they guy at the restaurant table next to me is yakking on the phone. That doesn’t make me a Luddite. I’m not out to make the world bend to my will, no chip on my shoulder, just sharing a random thought in a forum for Mundane Pointless Stuff.
You guys must be a riot at a Dennis Leary show. “But you are refusing to accept that popular tastes change! People want to have flavored coffees, and why not? Read the Starbucks menu! It has tens of thousands of different possible combinations, something for every individual taste. Do you want to the force the world to go back to three choices: Small, Medium, Large? It must be terrible to go through life like that.”
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### Author:  [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2013, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/45 "2013-10-13T21:25:03Z")
Inflammable means flammable? WHAT A COUNTRY!
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/46 "2013-10-13T23:16:38Z")
Look, this is prescription versus description. You’ll have better luck making a light hearted, joking post about the Holocaust.
That said, if it helps, the next time some cranky asshole is described as having a temper, pretend they’re saying it ironically.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/47 "2013-10-14T00:23:56Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> Look, this is prescription versus description. You’ll have better luck making a light hearted, joking post about the Holocaust.
Q: What’s worse than biting into an apple and seeing a worm?
A: The Holocaust.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/48 "2013-10-14T01:02:28Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> OK folks, apparently everybody enjoys a good fight, even where one doesn’t exist.
Then don’t drag me into your overly pedantic mock rage, or whatever it is.
You’re wrong. At least when claiming to be “correct” about a word use which changed hundreds of years ago to throw at us low-born commoners, get it right.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2013, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/49 "2013-10-14T04:52:24Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> You guys must be a riot at a Dennis Leary show.
I don’t understand. In what way would being at a Dennis Leary show make me an argument?
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### Author:  [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2013, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/50 "2013-10-14T13:24:28Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> Apparently you cleave to (what you take to be) the original meaning. Would you sanction sanctions against people who use it differently?
I got it, anyway.
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2013, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/51 "2013-10-15T13:38:39Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> On “presently”: think of “presenting,” as in a person or show, or “a present,” as in a wrapped gift. These are _on the way_, things you are _about_ to see.
No, that’s no good at all. I have the maturity of an 8 year old, and whenever I hear the word “presenting”, I can only think of it in the animal husbandry sense, which brings to mind lots of odd mental pictures depending on context, and makes me have to fight the giggles.
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### Author:  [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/52 "2013-10-15T14:02:30Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#):
>
> OK THAT’S IT. \*Presently \*means ‘RIGHT NOW’ and it NEVER SHOULD MEAN “sometime in the future.”
>
> THIS IS THE LINE I’VE CHOSEN TO DIE ON.
>
> I definitely can’t control my temper.
I WILL FIGHT WITH YOU. _holds dagger between teeth_
Also, “fun” is an adjective. Period!
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-word-usage-pet-peeve-temper/661328/53 "2013-10-15T14:48:45Z")
> [@Hampshire](#):
>
> I don’t hear “He has a temper” much.
> More of “He has a tendency to lose his temper.”
I’ve mostly heard “He had a bad temper.”
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> On “temper”: think of “tempering,” as for glass, or steel, or chocolate. These are processes to make the materials strong, stable, uniform. _Steady. Reliable._
In the Middle Ages, a cook would “temper” a food with a strong humor by mixing it with another food or with spices that had the opposite humeric value, in order to bring it in line with the humor of a healthy human body. Humor is another word that is similar to the word temper. There used to be four standard humors and now when something is humorous, it’s funny.
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