SUSPENSE …
2 a : mental uncertainty : anxiety
b : pleasant excitement as to a decision or outcome <a novel of suspense>
— from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Suspense is a “French English” word that has a few meanings in our language but is used most often to describe a sense of nervous anticipation, whether the circumstances involve dread or eagerness. For instance, we feel suspense when we’re waiting for someone to make a decision that’s out of our hands :
“Oh, please, please! Let them make a decent offer on my apartment so I can finally sell it!”
“When am I going to hear back from the prefecture? And what am I going to do if they end up refusing to renew my visa?”
But we can also feel it when we’re watching a television show and the episode ends with a dramatic event, while leaving the story unresolved :
“What in the world are they going to do now? Is he alive or dead? And what am I supposed to do with myself until next week?!”
… or when we’re reading a book, the chapter ends with a cliffhanger, and despite the fact that we have to get up early the next morning, we just have to start the next one.
“Suspense” came into Middle English from Anglo-French, one of those lexical imports during the first few centuries after the Norman Conquest. Its first recorded English use was in 1306 in the legal term “en suspens” meaning “not executed, unfulfilled.” By 1440, the word had also developed the sense of a “state of mental uncertainty” … because, I guess, whatever legal judgment that was “en suspens” had not yet been carried out and the future was stressfully unclear. The Anglo-French “suspens” itself derives from the Old French “suspens,” from the Latin “suspensus” (the past participle of the verb “suspendere“) meaning “delayed.” Continue reading Suspense. It’s French … sort of.
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