excited = enthusiastic; not in OED, AHD

[Jonathan Lighter]

Good point.

This favorable sense of "excited" sounds so normal to me that I must have
picked it up fifty years ago - or more.

Likewise the negative sense.

JL

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      excited = enthusiastic; not in OED, AHD
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In the US, "excited" most commonly means (very) enthusiastic, at least to
> me.
>
> The OED and AHD completely fail to explicitly provide this meaning,
> referring instead to strong feeling or emotion. For "excited," the OED says:
>
> 1. a. Stirred by strong emotion, disturbed, agitated.
>
> My Mac dictionary, however, addresses what to me is the basic meaning,
> saying:
>
> 1 very enthusiastic and eager : they were excited about the prospect | the
> excited children.
>
> On the Endangered Languages list, there was an exchange where someone
> apparently using Irish English thought it absurd to be excited about
> revitalizing languages.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA
>
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