Are you worried about whether you can use worry does that mean eager? If that’s the case, we’ll now proceed to alleviate your discomfort. If you are not and have been mixing these words carelessly for many years, now we will continue to bring some anxiety to your former carefree existence.
If you use ‘anxious’ to mean ‘eager’, most manuals will disagree with your choice. On the other hand, people—including Jane Austen, Kingsley Amis, Lord Byron, Flannery O’Connor, and several thousand others—have used the word ‘anxiety’ in this way for hundreds of years.
Many instructions for use caution do not use worry in one of the senses for which we provide a definition, which is “a strong or ardent desire.” Here’s an example of what you’ll see if you turn to most such books for guidance:
Worry should not be confused with lust. It means “to feel anxious.”—Frederick William Hamilton, English vocabulary and grammar1918
Anxious/Eager – The difference is worth preserving. Okay worry about something is worried or uncomfortable about it. Okay eager yearning for something intensely.—James J. Kilpatrick, writer’s art1984
Why are so many people eager to use it? worry improperly? Are they worried about writing too slowly? Read this carefully: Worry implies fear and anxiety.—Lauren Kessler & Duncan McDonald, When Words Collide, 8th Edition2012
Worry means uncomfortable or nervous. Avoid the less precise meaning as a synonym for eager.—Allan M. Siegal & William Connolly, The New York Times Handbook of Style and Usage, 5th Edition2015
Eager is the older of the two, dating from the 13th century. However, the earliest meaning of the word is not what is commonly seen today; it originally meant “marked for this type by the remarkable development of some quality (such as sourness, taste, pungent, pungent, pungent, cold, or strong).” It didn’t take on the meaning of “desire” until the 16th century, about the same time that worry started to be used. Our earliest evidence for worry from 1529, in Thomas More’s Soulys’ Supply: “to demonstrate that he leaves no undue concern for his natural country….”
When do people start treatment? worry as a synonym of types for eager? The Oxford English Dictionary There are references to such use dating back to 1570, so it has been used this way for nearly 450 years, if not longer. And for most of this time, the fact is worry doing a job that means “anxious” and then working overtime at another job that means “eager” doesn’t seem to bother people. For proof that this amalgamation of worry And eager did not cause hacks until the 20th century, we can see articles by professionals on grammar and usage from the 19th century; many of them seem to have used worry means “wish” when writing books that could be classified as “to scold people for the bad way they use the English language.”
To please Mr. Gould, who seems to be keen to prolong this controversy, I continue to critique his language.—G. Washington moon, Bad English Exposed: A Series of Criticisms on the Errors and Inconsistencies of Lindley Murray and other Grammarians, 4th ed.1871
…even though they’re sure declare to the dignity of a king whose country does not want to acknowledge them.—Gilbert M. Tucker, Our joint speech1895
Out of courtesy, I refer to a report on this structure sent to me by a reporter anxious to demonstrate that Shakspere used modern obscenity.—Henry Alford, The Queen’s Prayer for English1864
Sometimes a 20th century manual will indicate that the use of worry does that mean eager well established, and not really a big deal (HW Fowler, in his 1926 book Modern English usage wrote that the objections to worry EQUAL eager is “negligible” and that its use is “almost universal today”), but most people who have written books on the use of the language have argued against it.
So what should you do?
Whether you choose to keep the difference between worry And eager is completely up to you. On the one hand, if you use worry in the sense of eager, most manuals won’t agree with your choice. Otherwise, this usage is quite common, and quite a few writers (including Jane Austen, Kingsley Amis, Lord Byron, Flannery O’Connor, and several thousand others) have used it. worry this way for hundreds of years.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
