A woman and her 10-year-old daughter are looking for a word that describes being excited but anxious. It’s not exactly twitterpated, and the Southernismlike a worm in hot ashes is vivid, but a phrase and not a single word. If a single word for this feeling exists, maybe it involves butterflies? This is part of a complete episode.
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While listening to your wonderful show, I often attempt to compose solutions for questions pertaining to holes other listeners discover in our English language. Although the first words that came to mind were scare-cited and scare-roused, I quickly realized that if the word were translated, one would likely want to avoid any inappropriate connotations. I’d like to suggest the use of the portmanteau “Enthusianxious.” The other great thing about this word is that it can be translated into other languages like Spanish “entusiansiado,” French “enthousianxieux,” and even German as “enthusiängstlich.”