"She was a little irked," I said to a friend, and he gave me a blank look.
"I mean, she was annoyed, a little angry," I said. "That's what irked means...."
Well, it's a word everyone knows, but where does it come from? I was betting the Scottish.
But as usual, I was wrong. It comes from old Norse--the forerunner of modern Norwegian. Not a surprise, really--the Norwegians tend to get annoyed easily!
