Excited to Excited for

[imnotcourtney]

Cannot take it any more. Why does it bother me when people say "We are excited for summer". "We are excited to go on a field trip". There must be some verb vs noun abuse going on. I just can't pinpoint which law it violates. Bad enough in day to day usage - but now it is cropping up on tv language. Why is it bugging me so much?

 

[CajunCenturion]

I suspect they're bugging you because those usages are inconsistent with your normal dialectic and/or idiomatic usage. I would prefer "We are excited about summer." and "We are excited to be going on a field trip.". However, that doesn't mean the past participle + preposition combination "excited for", nor the past participle + infinitive combination "excited to go", is wrong.


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[flyboytim]

To excite, to be excited.

I thought it was often used as a reflexive verb - we get excited by something that excites us.

Hence:
(The prospect of) Summer excites us.

We are excited for (i.e. because) Summer (is approaching).

It could therefore be considered as an outmoded usage.

We are excited (because we are about) to go on a field trip.

In some ways, the point Imnotcourtney makes is understandable - but this is english we are talking about, a language that is always open to evolutionary changes in usage - innit?

(innit? - isn't it? - is not that so? - what is it that it is? - Qu'est-ce que c'est?) - or is it wossat? I give up.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[CajunCenturion]

Grammatically, it's not about the verb. It's about a past participle functioning as an adjective followed by a prepositional phrase. The issue is about the paring between the participle adjective and the following preposition. Some prepositions sound better with certain participles than others. With the participle 'excited', 'around' sounds better, at least to me, than 'for' sounds even though syntactically, grammatically, and semantically, they're equivalent. It's a dialectic or idiomatic condition, not one of grammar.


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[sleipnir214]

And to continue CC's thesis, it seems to me to often be the case that the transliteration of phrases from other languages affects local idioms.

For example, in south Louisiana, it's still not uncommon to hear older Cajuns user the phrase "to get down from a car" (where, or course, the more common phrase is "to get out of a car"). The best explanation I've heard of the idiom is that the phrase is based on a Cajun French one that talks about getting down from a (horse-drawn) buggy.

I've also heard unusual preposition-choice idioms from small pockets in Texas, Minnesota and Wisconsin where lots of Germans, Norwegians or Swedes (respectively) have settled. It seems those languages, though often dying out, leave a mark.

imnotcourtney, could you be living in such a pocket?


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[CajunCenturion]

Perhaps the more important question is
Who is Courtney?


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[SantaMufasa]

An additional consideration, ImNotCourtney, is that you are comparing two different contexts/senses of "excited...":[ul][li]excited to <verb> -- (your example): We are excited to go on a field trip.[/li]

[li]excited for <noun> -- (your example): We are excited for summer.[/li][/ul]As CC pointed out earlier, there is no grammatical problem with either usage. So if you are going to be excited in conjuction with a verb, we typically connect those pieces with to (a grammatical signal for a verbal infinitive); if you are going to be excited in conjuction with a noun, it is common to connect them with the preposition, for, or another preposition (e.g, about, over, with, et cetera). In this latter case, the noun is acting as the object of the preposition.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
“People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

 

[sleipnir214]

CC:
Or another important question:

Why is someone being so careful to be not confused with Courtney?


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[SantaMufasa]

Sleipnir...I'm confused. <grin>

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
“People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

 

[sleipnir214]

Santa:
Not to worry. imnotcourney can probably explain all.


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