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In the OALD article "annoyance" the following sample sentence is given:
His behaviour caused great annoyance to his colleagues.
In the same article, the meaning of annoyance is defined as "the feeling of being slightly angry". Following this definition, great annoyance is simply anger.
So, why to speak of "great annoyance" instead of
His behaviour caused (great) anger to his colleagues.
What are the stylistic and semantic differences between the two sample sentences above?
Being annoyed is different from being angry. If I am angry at someone, I might yell at them. If I am annoyed, I might just roll my eyes and shake my head. If I am greatly annoyed, I might exaggerate the eye-rolling and head-shaking, but it's still not the same as being angry.
Naturally this depends on context and personality. There are people who yell even when they are only annoyed. There are people who don't yell even when they are furious.
In addition, "annoyed" can be a diplomatic substitute for "anger". In a professional environment it is often inappropriate to be or act angry, so instead we use "annoyed" (or "upset") to downplay the severity of the emotion.
HR Rep: Ted, we've called this meeting because we were told you got a little annoyed with your boss the other day.
Ted: Yes, I was a little upset.
HR Rep: Well, your coworkers said you were screaming and running around the office, yelling out some very rude words to describe your boss.
Ted: OK, I guess I was more than a little upset.
For this reason we can only guess what "great annoyance" actually means. More context is needed to understand what actions resulted from the annoyance of his colleagues. Only then we can tell whether the author is downplaying a more serious emotion (like anger), or if it means the colleagues simply rolled their eyes and shook their heads frequently and intensely.
The annoyance is a stimulus, but anger is a response. Even if it’s largely involuntary ...
It is a somewhat hair-splitting distinction, but it might help to think of annoyance as an irritation (i.e. an itch), and anger as a scratch, or at least as the urge to scratch.
To respond to your comment: yes, we can say annoyed to mean that something has annoyed us. We have been irritated. We are itchy.
Now, someone punches you in the face, you're angry.
We can find something or someone annoying or an annoyance. The thing or person irritates or bothers us. We can turn our back on an annoyance, so to speak. Anger, on the other hand, is usually directed at a thing or person that has provoked us. Annoyance can transition to anger.
For example, when you keep kicking the back of the seat of the person in front of you at the movies, you are annoying them. At some point, that person may turn around and look at you and express their anger at having been annoyed for too long.
There is such a thing as "righteous anger", but there is no such thing as "righteous annoyance".
