Here There and Everywhere

Gripes of a Native English Speaker

OK, you are right, this is very picky. I like language – I love a good word in the right place. There are some things you can read that make my heart flutter, they are so elegant, so eloquent.

It doesn’t have to be a big word, or a fancy word – it has to be a word that grabs your attention because of it’s . . . fitness, it’s rightness in the context.

So here are my two gripes. And these are words used and abused by native English speakers!

Anxious – Eager
People use anxious all the time when they mean eager. I am anxious to see you. I anxiously await your letter. Anxious has an undertone of concern. If you are anxious, you are a little worried about something.

While eager is 100%, no-stopping, no holding back, happy anticipation. I am EAGER to see you again. I am EAGER to get your letter (and I expect only good things).

Don’t worry. You will see it used wrongly all the time, and you will hear it all the time. I know I am writing this for nothing, I am just getting it on paper because it drives me wild. I am sharing the agony – you will start hearing it, too, and I hope it will drive you wild.

Decimate – Devastate

You would think newscasters would know better, but they use decimate all the time, when they mean devastate. Decimate has a very strict meaning – when Roman troops would decimate, every tenth soldier would fall out. A division would be decimated – it’s strength would fall by 10%.

Devastate, on the other hand, implies utter distruction. Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. The huge Tsunami devastated Indonesia and Thailand. An earthquake devastated villages in Pakistan – destroyed, destroyed utterly.

I feel so much better 🙂

October 17, 2006 Posted by intlxpatr | Communication, Language, Words | 2 Comments