I'm trying to find a snappy way of distinguishing between the following cases, both of which involve someone enjoying something unexpectedly.
1. Anne comes home to find her friends have arranged a surprise party. She really enjoys it.
2. Bob knows he is going to a friend's party that evening; he does not think he will enjoy it. But he goes nevertheless and ends up having a really enjoyable time.
(And we might even add 3. Charlie spends the day agonising about a friend's party he has to go to that evening. His afternoon is ruined in dreading the thought of it. Be he goes, out of duty, and ends up having a really enjoyable time.)
The pleasures that Anne and Bob enjoy at their respective parties can both be called, I think, 'unexpected' or 'surprise' pleasures. I want a pair of labels that will clearly and concisely distinguish them.
5 comments:
The first kind seems to be an unexpected pleasure and the second seems to be a pleasure 'counter to one's expectations'. That's not very snappy, but surely you could jargon it up...
I like that. I'll do some jargonification.
Anne's surprise is 'unfounded' in that it doesn't run contrary to any expectations or prejudices. Bob's suprise is 'confounded' in that it expressly goes against what he expected. So 'Unfounded Surprise' and 'Confounded Surprise' are my suggestions. J
Thanks again. Here's another way to put what I'm after. Let's say that 'disappointment' is what is felt when something that we anticipate to be good or pleasant turns out not to be so good or pleasant. What's the positive counterpart of that? Something we anticipate to be bad or painful that turns out to be less so? And just as disappointment is different from a simple surprise bad so too this had better be different from a simply good.
'surpleasure'
a pleasant experience that is a surprise based upon the premise that the anticpatory feeling related to the as yet unexperienced experience was bad or painful
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