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In the quest for the right word, you may
encounter a dilemma when you need to choose between
anticipate and expect. Both of these words mean
to look forward to:
Ex. I anticipated a pleasant
journey down the Nile.
Ex. I expected a large cash bonus at
the end of the year.
Anticipate,
however, implies a more concrete prediction than expect.
Compare the first definitions of both these words:
Anticipate:
To feel or realize beforehand; foresee
Expect:
To regard something as probable or likely
Let’s see
this in action. Compare the next two sentences.
Ex. Nancy
anticipates that she’ll have problems with APA in her
upcoming research project.
Ex. Nancy
expects that she’ll have problems with APA in her
upcoming research project.
The use of anticipates
in the first sentence takes the meaning to a concrete
level – Nancy knows she will have difficulty and may
be preparing for it in some way. In the second sentence, the use of the word
expects tells the reader that Nancy is predicting
that she’ll have difficulty.
This example
leads to the next distinction between anticipate and
expect: anticipate, unlike expect, can
imply an action in response to a prediction. For example,
let’s compare anticipating a punch to
expecting
a punch:
If you anticipate a punch, you realize that you will
be punched and may move to defend against it.
If you
expect a punch, you are thinking that it is probable
that you will be punched.
Expect,
unlike anticipate, has additional meanings. It can be
used to indicate something is required or to refer to a
pregnancy:
Ex. I expect those reports to
be on my desk by Friday.
Ex. Kara and Seth are expecting in
June.
More
examples:
Ex. She
anticipated the strike against her bishop by positioning
her knight.
Ex. Most
expected the Civil War to be over in a handful of
months. William anticipated a longer war, stocking
his cabin with goods.
Ex. Thousands of Americans anticipated
a Y2K that never came. I expect that several thousand
more Americans wondered if they too needed to prepare for
it.
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