AlanCrowe comments on Being Half-Rational About Pascal's Wager is Even Worse - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 April 2013 05:20AM

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Comment author: AlanCrowe 18 April 2013 10:53:37PM 13 points [-]

I retain an eight volume dictionary from 1899 to answer this kind of question. Meaning four is

To arouse the emotions of; agitate or perturb mentally; move: as, he was greatly excited by the news.

One real-life example is

The news of the fall of Calcutta reached Madras, and excited the fiercest and bitterest resentment

Today "exciting" is often contrasted with "boring" and has a positive connotation. (eg "We hoped the football game would be exciting and were disappointed when it was boring.") My old dictionary seems evenly balanced with "excited" being bad and good by turns.

Comment author: DaFranker 19 April 2013 02:11:20PM 1 point [-]

I retain an eight volume dictionary from 1899 to answer this kind of question.

That's some epic skill levels in Arcane Lore right there.

Comment author: gwern 19 April 2013 05:05:13PM *  3 points [-]

Or he could've just downloaded a copy of the OED.

("excited: 1.a Stirred by strong emotion, disturbed, agitated. '1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. III. 275 "The population of Edinburgh was in an excited state."    1864 Mrs. Carlyle Lett. III. 216 "The excited people‥rushed out to me."    1879 McCarthy Own Times I. 199 "Thiers carried with him much of the excited public feeling of France."'")

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