OT: Semantic field irritated/annoyed/angry versus upset

[Paul Keating]

My French course offered me the word fâché and asked for the corresponding English. I selected one option from three obvious possibilities and entered annoyed, and was told “No, the correct translation is upset.”  Now, at least in my dialect, that is just wrong, though I have enough nous to grasp that it it's probably okay in AmE. (The same course tells my wife Janet that chequebook is not the correct English for chequier: it can apparently only be checkbook.)

From what W3 says, I suspect that upset in the sense of "irritated, annoyed, angry" is a US euphemism that is too recent to have made it into a dictionary published in 1961, or indeed even into the online Merriam-Webster.

This is not a complaint about an otherwise excellent French course. I will complain (that I am there to learn French, not AmE), but this group is not the forum for that.

But I would like to have my guess confirmed, modified, nuanced (or contradicted) by any of my fellow players who know and care enough to comment.

[Shani Naylor]

Hi Paul - I've just checked the OED and they have no def for upset in this sense (as an adjective). The closest they have is as a verb: To throw into mental disorder or discomposure; to trouble or distress.

 I had no idea upset, in this sense, is a new coinage as it's so common.

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[John Barrs]

Paul

re "upset": I have done a straw poll and all my acquaintances in the UK would primarily go for the state-of-mind of a crossed or wronged person. While I personally deprecate changes to our language like this, it is symptomatic of a feely society which concentrates on the personal effects of an action and I am afraid we have to put up with it if we wish to continue to communicate to our contemporaries. I continually find that I am misunderstood because I use a word in its "what I grew up with" meaning... us old fogeys can probably only really communicate with our coevals

so sympathy, but not agreement

JohnnyB

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[Paul Keating]

The sense is not in the OED, but that definition was written in 1926 so absence from there is not an indication. A lot can happen in 100 years, and the OED3 revisers haven't reached U yet. It's also not in the Collins (around 2000) which is generally very reliable. It's not in W3 (1961) not even in the contemporary M-W online. 

It looks to me like a euphemistic development of the recorded sense (physiologically or emotionally disturbed), which is not a far stretch. My questions are simply 1. Is this as recent as the gaps in the sources suggest? Your comment suggests the answer is No. And 2. Is the usage primarily AmE, or is that just a thumbsuck on my part?

P

[Efrem Mallach]

Paul,

Have you tried asking in a language discussion group, such as (but not limited to) the English Only forum of wordreference.com?

Efrem

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[Paul Keating]

I recently asked a completely different question on the English Language site of Stack Exchange. I'm regretting it already, because of the responses from people who answer the easy question they wished you had asked, and not the hard one you did ask.