Monday, October 6, 2014

Eager to get this post up....anxious it will be wrong!

I loved this week's homework with using the right words.  I think that I learned more this past week and felt more confident about my grammar than in previous weeks.  One of the confusions that some people have is using the words anxious and eager.  I think we tend to use anxious with everything.  One thing that is important to remember is that:
                  Anxious implies fear and worry.
                  Eager is used when you are stimulated and excited at the prospect of doing something.

You can be anxious about something; you cannot be anxious to do that thing.

A few sentences that go along with deciphering the difference between the two:

       The kids were eager to go through the haunted house.
   
       The patient was anxious about the upcoming surgery.
       

One thing that helped me is if you see the prepositional phrase in the sentence like "to do" then you need to use eager. If you there is "about" being used, then you usually used anxious.



I think that "to, and too" are often misspelled.  It drives me crazy!  I catch it even in texts from friends and family and I usually have to take a quick moment and correct them.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for your helpful tip about the difference between "eager" and "anxious", I thought I understood the difference after reading about them in the textbook, but then I missed the question relating to these words on the "Right Words" quiz. This will be a beneficial reminder in the future: You can be "anxious about something" but not "anxious to do something".

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  2. I love the grammar mistake! Also, I really enjoyed the post. I found the eager vs anxious a really interesting concept this past week too. After a bit of studying, it was one of those grammar rules that really stuck with me. All of this is slowly becoming apart of my normal writing skills! SWEET!

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