Close, But No Cigar

List 4 words and, next to each, place a word or phrase which is close in meaning.

e.g. between – among;
anger – irritation;
awkward - embarrassing;
dash - sprint.

Now use one pair of words as the starting point for a piece of writing: You might find the following construction useful: 'It was not so much anger as a sense of irritation I felt when, for the third time, Martin scraped his pen across the air vents ....'