Keen on vs. eager to

[Nicole]

Hello everybody, could you please tell me the difference between I’m keen on working with you and I’m eager to work with you?
Thank you,
Nicole

[Nicole]

Hi again, I know what a snob is but what does this expression mean: to snob somebody out?
Thank you,
Nicole

[Alan]

Hi Nicole,

Keen on doing something suggests that you are enthusiastic about the idea of doing something.
Eager to do something gives the idea that you are both enthusiastic and ready to do something.

Charlie is very keen on rowing and is eager to try out the new boat as soon as possible.

Alan

[Alan]

Hi Nicole,

I hadn’t heard this expression before but the piece below gives some idea what it means:

“If a man says ‘often’ and pronounces the ‘t’,” explained our friend, "he is snobbing out the poor oafs who say ‘offen’ as if they didn’t know how it was spelled. But then, people who really know anything about language know that you’re not supposed to pronounce the ‘t’…so they can snob out others by saying ‘offen’ just like the oafs who don’t know any better. But if you really want to snob them all out, you say ‘often,’ with a ‘t’…It’s a way of declaring that you’re not bound by silly old rules laid down by a bunch of language snobs a hundred years ago.

It suggests to me that if you snob somebody out, you are trying to challenge others to question what you have done or said while all the time you know what the correct way is of doing or saying something.

Just trying to help

Alan

[Conchita]

“If a man says ‘often’ and pronounces the ‘t’,” explained our friend, "he is snobbing out the poor oafs who say ‘offen’ as if they didn’t know how it was spelled. But then, people who really know anything about language know that you’re not supposed to pronounce the ‘t’…so they can snob out others by saying ‘offen’ just like the oafs who don’t know any better. But if you really want to snob them all out, you say ‘often,’ with a ‘t’…It’s a way of declaring that you’re not bound by silly old rules laid down by a bunch of language snobs a hundred years ago.

How interesting! What I don’t learn here!

In my great oafishness, I’ve never pronounced the ‘t’ in often (and won’t start now!), but have always thought that both options were equally accepted. They are, aren’t they? Some dictionaries show only the [ofn] pronunciation, though.

It suggests to me that if you snob somebody out, you are trying to challenge others to question what you have done or said while all the time you know what the correct way is of doing or saying something.

So it’s a bit like (thinking) you are outwitting or outsmarting them, isn’t it?

[Jamie_K]

Pronouncing the “t” in “often” is considered by many people (at least in North America) as the mark of a poorly educated person, low-class person who is trying to sound educated and high-class. (This is the perception, but I don’t notice this being the case most of the time.) It’s similar to people who won’t use “me” in a series and therefore say, “They brought gifts for my brother and I,” instead of correctly saying “my brother and me.” People perceive it as an attempt to sound educated that backfires and makes the person sound uneducated.

To “snob out” must be a relatively new expression. I think it must mean to try to make a show of being classier or in some way socially superior to someone else. This meaning would seem to fit in the quote Nicole gave, and in this one:

“So what do you get for the money? Well, primarily, a high-quality, attractive glass that very nicely accentuates the nose (smell) of a wine. I won’t wine-snob out, but really: they work.”

I’ve also found the expression “to snob out on”, which seems to mean to go into some major or minor fit of snobbishness:

“and the Parisians really snob out on Quebecois French, don’t they?”

It’s really hard to find that expression on Google, which would suggest that it’s not being used that much yet.