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.
Transcript of “Word for Being Excited but Anxious”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, is this Martha?
This is Martha. Who’s this?
Hi, Martha. It’s Mary Lou, and we’re calling from the quiet corner of Connecticut.
Hi, Mary Lou. What’s the quiet corner of Connecticut?
Yeah, which corner is it?
The quiet corner of Connecticut is the northeast corner of Connecticut.
Okay. And what makes it so quiet?
Away from the city.
It’s away from the city. We have beautiful fields and pastures and lots of cows.
Okay. Well, they’re not very quiet, are they?
And so you and the cows had some questions for us?
Well, me, the cows, my daughter, and actually we’re here with her whole fifth grade class.
Oh, nice.
Oh, wow.
So I’m going to ask Nina to ask you what her question is, if that’s okay.
Yeah, sure.
I’m looking for a word for how I feel right now, which is nervous and excited.
You’re looking for a word about how you feel right now, which is nervous and excited.
So it’s a combination of the two things.
You’re eager to talk with us, but you’re also nervous?
Yes.
Okay.
Well, that’s a great question.
And have you thought of some other words and then rejected them?
Some like anxious and stage fright.
Yeah, anxious.
Stage fright’s a good one, but it doesn’t feel right.
It doesn’t feel right.
What about butterflies in your stomach?
That’s good.
But we’re wondering if there’s one word that would bring that feeling together, a word like bittersweet that has two emotions in one word.
Two different elements.
So what you’re talking about is the feeling that you get when you really want to do something, but you sort of don’t want to do something.
Is that the idea?
Yeah.
Yes.
And so worked up isn’t quite right because you’re more than just worked up.
You’re worked up but also cautious.
And anxious really is more negative.
It doesn’t capture the positive part of it, which is that you really want to do it, but part of you is rebelling.
Exactly.
And so you wouldn’t be happy with the phrase like butterflies in your stomach.
You just want something briefer?
Something briefer.
So when something happens and we have that feeling, we can just say, I’m blank.
Oh.
We always come up with a blank.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
This is a tough one.
It is.
You know what? This is kind of a silly thing, and it’s not one word, but my Aunt Mazo in the hills of North Carolina, when she was talking about somebody who was both excited and anxious, would say, he was like a worm in hot ashes.
And I thought that was just her phrase, but I looked it up and it’s actually in the Dictionary of American Regional English.
Hot ashes means excited and anxious.
That’s interesting.
So maybe I’m hot-ashed?
You reminded me for some reason of words like Twitterpated.
I was thinking of that too, actually.
But Twitterpated is more about frantic and excited.
Yeah, being silly.
Silly, yeah.
Yeah, I think.
Twitterpated, being in love, isn’t that from Bambi?
It is in Bambi, yeah.
It’s not only for being in love, but in Bambi it was used that way.
Yeah.
I think what we’re figuring out here is that there’s a hole in our language that you all have pinpointed.
So maybe we need some help coming up with a word.
So what’s the word that you would use, listener, for being excited to do something but also nervous about it?
And Mary Lou and Nina, we will let you know.
Thank you so much.
And hi to the class.
Yeah, hi, class.
Hi.
I have a fifth grader at home.
They sound exactly like him.
Mary Lou, thank you very much.
And Nina, thank you, too.
Thank you.
All right.
Take care.
You know, I was going to say that it sort of reminds me of the word that we’ve talked about before, anticipation.
Yeah.
Which is when you’re really excited about something and then it turns out to be a disappointment.
Maybe you could say anticipation.
Yeah.
Or something like anticipation and satisfaction.
Sometimes movie sequels are anticipating.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But anticipation, it’s tough, right?
It’s hard to come up with a word for this.
Aren’t there some forms of flustered that kind of work?
Oh, flustered.
Yeah.
I’m all fluttery.
Fluttergated or something like that.
Flutterpated.
Flutterpated.
Flutterpated.
Well, we don’t know, but perhaps you do.
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What’s the word for being excited about something, but also a little nervous about it?
Send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
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.”