Here's today's Daily Criticism Of The English Language And Of Expressions We Use.
I realized today, unless it was yesterday (I forget because I've had too much coffee and ice cream), that the phrase "I have a temper" usually means the same thing as "I lost my temper." Which sounds weird, because if having a temper means getting very angry and lashing out, then a temper seems like something you would want to lose if you had one.
Just for fun, I Googled "temper" just to see what the actual definition is. Actually I didn't yet, I'm going to now just as soon as I finish typing this sentence.
Ok, Google says that "temper" means "a person's state of mind seen in terms of their being angry or calm."
So if you lose your temper, you wouldn't have a state of mind at all, and the only appropriate time to say "I lost my temper" would be after your soul was eaten by a Dementor. And saying "I have a temper" just means "I have a state of mind," which is what you would say just before a Dementor ate your soul so that the spectators can have a clear before/after comparison.
The simplest way to say "I lost my temper" and mean what you say would (I think) be "I got very angry and shouted at you and hit you very hard with my soldering iron."
That's only if you're a Grammar Nazi and want to wreak havoc and chaos on our way of life, or if you got very angry and shouted at someone and hit him with a soldering iron and he forgot about it due to memory loss, and you need to remind him what you did so that you can properly apologize.
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