Grammar and Punctuation The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

Anxious, Eager

The words are different: anxious, like anxiety, denotes uneasiness.

In casual usage, anxious might mean either "enthusiastic" or "worried." But as Bryan A. Garner notes in A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, "to use the word merely as a synonym for eager is to give in to SLIPSHOD EXTENSION."


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