Sioux City is one of my favorite places; it’s where I lived when I worked for Gateway 2000. But a recent article written there betrayed a solecism that a writer from (ahem) the big city would have known not to make. Here’s the passage:
An anxious group of football players and their parents took up a full room at The Wheelhouse Bar & Grill – one of Sioux City’s newest sports bars – Wednesday night.
The athletes were there to celebrate their future as members of the Morningside College program, which became official as soon as the players signed letters of intent.
No, it’s not that high school athletes becoming college athletes sign up a bar is inappropriate. Places like that tend more to be community centers than in big cities. (Besides, I’m here to comment on what the writer wrote, not what the kids did.)
It’s the use of “anxious” when the writer meant “eager.” I even wrote about this at least once before. I guess the Sioux City writers don’t read The Writing Rag, eh?
Well, that’s okay. I still greatly enjoyed the time I lived there.