Hi, I would like to ask whether the sentence "It makes me irritating." has the same meaning as "It makes me irritated." If it means that something irritates me a lot. I'm confused because of the -ing form in the first sentence.
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Hello, Gabrielle, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange.
Something irritating makes you irritated, or irritates you.
-ing adjectives are active in meaning (something irritating causes irritation), while -ed adjectives are passive in meaning (somebody who is irritated experiences irritation).
Hello, Gustavo, thank you very much for your reply. So, the sentence "it makes me irritating" could be understood as "it makes me act in a irritating way, which can irritate someone else".
@Gabrielle1324 posted:So, the sentence "it makes me irritating" could be understood as "it makes me act in a irritating way, which can irritate someone else".
Yes, it means it makes you an irritating person, that is, a person that can irritate others.
Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.
Hello, Gabrielle, and welcome to the Grammar Exchange.
@Gabrielle1324 posted:So, the sentence "it makes me irritating" could be understood as "it makes me act in a irritating way, which can irritate someone else".
@Gustavo, Co-Moderator posted:Yes, it means it makes you an irritating person, that is, a person that can irritate others.
I agree with Gustavo's explanation, and that "It makes me irritating" must be understood to mean that it makes you an irritating person. I want to add, though, that I find "It makes me an irritating person" much more natural.
There is something very unusual about the sentence "It makes me irritating." I think such a sentence works much better with an insentient object: "That's what makes it (so) irritating."
With a person as object, it is far more natural to use a verb phrase after "make" when the person is the source of irritation: "It makes me irritate others." Adding a prepositional phrase would, however, improve the "irritating" version:
- It makes me irritating to others.
The basic meaning, of course, is "It makes others find me irritating" or "It makes me a source of irritation to others."
@David, Moderator posted:I want to add, though, that I find "It makes me an irritating person" much more natural.
Indeed!
Thank you, David, as well. I agree, that the sentence feels unnatural, but I found it in a text and wanted to know, whether I understood it correctly or not. "It makes me an irritating person" is much clearer.