3 thoughts on “Amused vs Bemused”

1. Laura,

   I live in the San Francisco Bay Area (2 miles from the Stanford Campus) and I like to think that I have reasonably well educated friends and acquaintances. However, I don’t think I hear the word “bemused” more than once every 5 years! Americans have a rather limited vocabulary (compared to the British, for instance) which is a pity but the misuse of the word “bemused” is just not a factor because the word isn’t used very often. (This makes me wonder – perhaps you live in a much more erudite world than what I encounter in the Bay Area or perhaps this is a function of communicating with other language professors/teachers around the country and the world.)

   Regards,

   Don DuBois

   24 May 2006 at 2:31 pm

2. Hi Don,

   Thanks for your response. In fact, I rarely hear anyone say “bemused” out loud; it’s really in books and articles that I see it (mis)used.

   24 May 2006 at 3:03 pm

3. I see “bemused” in writing at least once a week. I can remember seeing it used correctly only once: in an Aubrey/Maturin novel by Patrick O’Brian. In every other case, it is used to mean “amused”.

   I suspect that people use the word “bemused” to sound erudite.

   12 March 2013 at 1:12 am