Did you know that you can use the continuous aspect, in the past or present, to express irritation?

For example, normally we say:

As a boy, Frankie was annoying when he was tired.

Mary always loses things.

In these cases, these are general truths.  We are not expressing any feeling with our words.  However, if we would like the listener to know that we feel irritated, we can put the sentence into the continuous.

Baby Frankie was being very annoying yesterday—let’s make sure he sleeps well tonight!

Mary is always losing things! Argh!

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