Get someone's goat means to annoy or irritate someone. It's about something that bothers you again and again: another person's habit, noise, unfairness. The expression is conversational and less common than get on someone's nerves; in essays, annoy or irritate is used instead.
When would you say get someone's goat?
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something gets someone's goat; it really gets my goat when…; what gets my goat is…
- It really gets my goat when people talk loudly on the phone in the quiet coach.
- What gets my goat is paying extra for a delivery that arrives three days late.
What changed
First versionIt really gets on my goat when colleagues are late.
RevisionIt really gets my goat when colleagues are late.
Two idioms have been mixed up here: get my goat and get on my nerves. The goat idiom has no preposition, so on was removed. The rest of the sentence is correct.
Get on someone's nerves means the same and sounds more familiar: The noise from the street gets on my nerves. Drive someone up the wall is stronger, closer to “drive someone mad”: His constant questions drive me up the wall.
Your turn
My neighbour's dog barks every night at 3 a.m., and it really ___.
Show the answer
gets my goat — A dog barking at three in the morning is annoying, so gets my goat fits. Make my day means “make me happy”, and nobody is happy about barking at night.
Write about a small everyday thing that annoys you. Say where it happens and what you do about it.
It gets my goat when people leave dirty cups in the office kitchen, so I put a polite note on the fridge.
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