Listeners write in with suggestions for a young caller’s request for a single term to describe someone in a state of nervous anticipation. They propose aflutter, atwitter, nervousited, happrehensive, and a noun form, antrepidation. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Suggestions for a Word Meaning “Nervous Anticipation””
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Grant, you remember the call we had from Nina and her fifth grade class in Connecticut. They were looking for a word that means both nervous and excited.
Oh, yeah, sure. The reason I know that is because of all the emails we got. We got so many emails. And phone calls.
Yes. Yes, Nina was looking for a word that means both nervous and excited. For example, she was nervous about talking with us, but she was also excited.
And a lot of people wrote us to suggest, what about a flutter or a Twitter?
Oh, nice. A flutter, I love it. Those are good.
Yeah. But I was amazed at the number of suggestions we got that were portmanteaus, pushing together a couple of different words. We heard from Bob Zina in Louisville, Kentucky, who suggested antrepidation, like anticipation and trepidation.
Okay, very good. Antrepidation, I like that. We also heard from the principal of Earl Wooster High School in Reno, Nevada. Go Colts.
Her name is Leah, and she suggested the word happrehensive.
Happrehensive. I like that one. That’s really good, too, right?
And we also heard from Petra Bairami, who is here in San Diego, and she wrote, a few years ago when my son Ryan was five years old and had just started kindergarten, his class was going to perform for the first time in front of all the parents, and they were going to recite a poem.
My son took me aside and said, Mommy, I am very nervous-sighted.
Nervous-sighted. Perfect.
Yeah, and Petra says, I’d never heard that word, so I asked him what he meant, and he explained to me he meant nervous and excited at the same time. Since we speak only Farsi at home, I was pretty sure he had learned that word at school.
What do you think?
That’s a good one. Nervous-sighted.
And we had a ton of these. I don’t know which one is going to catch on, if any of them, but I plan to come back from the dead in about 100 years and look into it.
You’re making me nervous-sided right now. We’re going to find out. We’ll know. The language will know.
Well, call us with your stories about language, 877-929-9673. And we always welcome email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.
