Timeline for "Anxious to" versus "eager to"
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 23, 2010 at 21:41 | comment | added | nohat | It seems silly to object to a sense of a word that has been in use for more than 200 years—*anxious* meant earnestly wishing long before you were born and will continue to mean it long after you die. Users of English have no obligation to be rational in their own choice of usages, so you should do as you like. But I will object to characterizing well-established usages as “misuse” because I think it’s misleading to readers, and I will object to moaning about “misuse” “harming” the language without some kind of substantiation. | |
| Sep 23, 2010 at 18:55 | comment | added | Tim | @nohat Sure, you may use the word to mean "earnestly wishing". I will continue to use the unambiguous meaning. | |
| Sep 23, 2010 at 17:13 | comment | added | nohat | @Tim language change happens. Words’ meanings drift over time. Many things that are grammatical today were considered “errors” by people long ago. You are right that there was no reason to “make” anxious an ambiguous term, but it is ambiguous now, whether you like it or not. Language has never been beholden to “logic”. Protesting that the word didn’t mean it as some time in the past doesn’t change the fact that anxious does indeed today have as one of its meanings “ardently or earnestly wishing”. | |
| Sep 23, 2010 at 17:05 | comment | added | Tim | Note also that this 3rd addition is placed there only because of repeated and common incorrect use. Eager was already a fine word to characterize the feeling. There was no reason to make anxious an ambiguous term. We are now left with a word that has no real meaning since the meaning must be take from the rest of the context. (for example did the speaker mean eager or with a sense of anxiety - the actual word anxious carries no value and the sentence could work just as well without the word) | |
| Sep 23, 2010 at 17:01 | comment | added | Tim | You call it nonsense, I call your permissive interpretation a dilution of the language. We will likely not agree on much when it comes to this. Your opinion seems to imply that if I just start using a word to mean anything I like and then other people do then that is ok. I'd rather not take that view. | |
| Sep 23, 2010 at 16:23 | comment | added | nohat | @Tim it’s only “misuse” if you buy into all that prescriptive nonsense. | |
| Sep 23, 2010 at 16:02 | comment | added | Tim | Yes, but it is likely that it is a meaning which was added after all the misuse. | |
| Sep 23, 2010 at 1:51 | vote | accept | Kevin Walker | ||
| Sep 22, 2010 at 20:23 | comment | added | Kosmonaut | Doesn't "anxious to (do something)" usually mean eager or excited, more often than "having anxiety"? If we mean "having anxiety" then we usually use "anxious about". | |
| Sep 22, 2010 at 20:20 | history | answered | nohat | CC BY-SA 2.5 |