"Surprise" or "Surprised"

[Tom]

Dear all

Please see the sentence given below from Dan Brown's book Da Vinci Code.(Page: 177)

1-As Silas read the words on the tablet, he felt surprise.

Shouldn't it be surprised?

Tom

[Mister Micawber]

.
No, he felt the emotion, 'surprise' (n).

He felt surprise.
He was surprised.
.
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Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's

[Jamie (K)]

It depends on what the writer is thinking. As Mister Micawber says, he felt the emotion surprise, so the sentence is correct. However, it's also possible to say he felt surprised, just as you can say he felt cheated or that he felt disgusted.

Similar pairs would be:

He felt disgust. (the emotion)
He felt disgusted. (the state)

He felt horror, (the emotion)
He felt horrified. (the state)

[Mister Micawber]

.
While about everything seems possible in English, Jamie, I don't think that, where emotions are concerned, many speakers 'feel' the adjective. A quick inquiry to Ms Google gives us:

13,900,000 English pages for "I was surprised"
780 English pages for "I felt surprised"

106,000 English pages for "he was disgusted"
496 English pages for "he felt disgusted"

133,000 English pages for "he was horrified"
82 English pages for "he felt horrified"

Cheated, of course, is a different kettle of fish-- it is not an emotive state, but rather a passive experience, so the distribution may be quite different:

40,300 English pages for "he was cheated".
11,000 English pages for "he felt cheated"

Here, your idea of was/felt equivalence seems to the point.
_________________
Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's

[Jamie (K)]

When I search Google -- with the two expressions in quotation marks -- I get this:

9,330 for "felt surprise"
30,500 for "felt surprised"

12,900 for "felt disgust"
47,000 for "felt disgusted"

912 for "felt horror"
799 for "felt horrified"

I guess this needs more examination.

[Mister Micawber]

.
Your numbers look roughly equivalent to mine, Jamie, considering that you did not limit them with a pronoun-- but I wasn't comparing the noun to the adjective (I grant that they are both uncommon). I was comparing the verbs: feel vs be + adjective, where the latter is the normal choice.
.
_________________
Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's

[Tom]

The discussion has become so interesting and informative.
I enjoyed it thoroughly. Would anyone else like to share his/ her opinion about the same? Amy? Alan? Conchita?

Tom

[Bindiyay]

Hi Tom,

The Oxford Dictionary states:

surprise
• noun 1 a feeling of mild astonishment or shock caused by something unexpected. 2 an unexpected or astonishing thing.
• verb 1 cause to feel surprise. 2 capture, attack, or discover suddenly and unexpectedly.

I would agree with Mister Micawber's first statement, and the terms 'state' and 'emotion' sum it up best. Something internal, my reaction to an event or thing such as the writing on the tablet, is emotional; while something physically caused by another event, such as the tablet dropping on the ground in front of me all of a sudden, causes a 'state'.

So in this example, seeing the writing on the tablets causes Silas to feel the emotion of surprise, much like he may have felt joy, anger, sorrow or shock, rather than 'physically' *surprising*, upsetting, enraging, shocking him... if that makes sense. In the words of the Oxford: "As Silas read the words on the tablet, he felt 'a feeling of mild astonishment' ".

In everyday conversation I would have said 'felt surprised', but using the noun form gives writing a bit more personality and intimacy, don't you think?

Just my penny's worth of input to this trove of treasures

[Nanucbe]