What does the expression «to bring someone to a white heat» mean?
Has someone really angered you? Then they've “довел до белого каления” (“dovel do belogo kaleniya” or “brought you to a white heat”).
In old cartoons, a character who was extremely upset would turn red, then white and then steam would billow out of their ears. No translation was needed to understand their emotions: driven to a boiling point.
In reality, this expression was borrowed from blacksmiths. Before forging, metal was heated, a process called ‘annealing’. Depending on the temperature, it would change color, turning red, yellow and, finally, when it was at its hottest, white. This process then became a common analogy for describing a highly irritated person.
