Scared vs. Afraid

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Brian Traub from Richardson, Texas.

Richardson, Texans. Welcome to the show, Brian. How you doing?

Hiya, Brian.

I’m doing fine, thank you.

What can we help with?

How to use scared versus afraid.

I talk with this about my kids quite a bit. They keep saying, I’m scared of this or I’m scared of that, and I think it should be, I’m afraid of this. And the example I give them is, you might be afraid of the dark because the monster under your bed will scare you. So that’s the way I think it should be.

This is a really great question that is widely discussed because the nuances between these words are so personal for a lot of people. And then we’ve got difficulties with parts of speech. And we’ve got difficulties that afraid is an adjective that never goes before the noun. You don’t say he’s an afraid person. You usually would say he’s a person who was afraid.

Really interesting.

So let’s just break this down. Some of the differences are really obvious. Scared tends to be informal, is associated with shock and surprise and excitement. So scared is a really active kind of negative emotion. Afraid is a little more formal in its usage when I’m looking at the text. And it tends to be associated with a calmer comportment, like a contemplative notion that I am about to be scared, as you put it. So there’s a little bit of usage separation here.

And afraid and scared both technically act as adjectives. But afraid, like I say, is an odd adjective that never goes before the noun, almost never. And scared actually is a past participle of the verb that behaves like an adjective. So it technically isn’t an adjective, even though it behaves like one. And I think you’ve hit on something interesting in terms of register.

I’m looking at a biblical concordance right now.

Ooh, nice.

Because I’m thinking of be not afraid and, you know, they were sore afraid. So a concordance looks at all the text in the Bible and matches up all uses of a word so you can see all of the context through all the chapters of the Bible.

Yes.

Okay.

And the word afraid is used in the Bible 189 times. The word scared is never in there.

Oh, interesting.

And I can see, you know, a culture that’s really familiar with the Bible sort of suggesting that in people’s minds. So, Brian, it’s your prerogative as a parent to teach your children the word uses that you want. I think teaching them afraid is a good choice because it’s a little more formal, but I wouldn’t criticize them for their use of scared.

Well, and I’m betting all of their peers probably say scared as well.

Well, I guess so many people say scared. You know, listening on the radio on NPR, I hear people using scared all the time. I go, should they be using it like that? And I hear it all the time, so I guess, you know, I can’t say that it’s wrong, but it just doesn’t sound right. It sounds like it would flow better if they would say, I’m afraid.

Interesting.

So you weren’t taught that necessarily in school?

It’s just a feeling you have?

It’s the feeling I have, yeah.

Interesting.

Brian, thank you so much for your call, sir.

Thank you very much.

You take care.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

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