excited = enthusiastic; not in OED, AHD

[Dan Goncharoff]

A change seems to have happened during WWII. In 1940 "excited" is mostly
a negative term. By 1945 it is often a positive one.

DanG

On 2/5/2010 6:20 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray<hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: excited = enthusiastic; not in OED, AHD
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Yep. To me, three.
>
> -Wilson
>
>
>
> 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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> --
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> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
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