LY #124 More Lasts

"It's a pun, son."

The past couple of weeks have been a time of lasts.   Today was my last lecture in my last new prep, Introduction to Visual Rhetoric.  Tuesday night was my last live lecture in an Interpersonal Communication class.  And last Tuesday afternoon I gave my last lecture in a weekly public speaking class.

"And how do you feel about that Dr. Huck?"

Happysad?  Excitedanxious?  Bemused?

Happysad because I will miss sharing ideas that are important to me but I will not miss sharing them with people who are filled with the psychological noise generated by their own concerns about other classes, their next meal, their interpersonal relationships, and all the other issues that suck the air right out of any belief I might that more than a fourth of what I'm saying in class is actually being received.  (This statement is based on the linear model of communication, a better model than the transactional when one is viewing the lecture setting.)

Excitedanxious because I'm looking forward to new ventures but leaving structures that are familiar and manageable. 

Now, bemused is an interesting word.   It arises from the word "amuse" which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it comes from the Old French amuse-r to cause to muse, to put into a stupid stare.  While "amuse" is a verb that has come to mean something more like being entertained, "bemuse" still has that original French flavor.  It means to be confused or muddled.  The OED identifies Alexander Pope as the earliest published proponent:

1734   Pope Epist. to Arbuthnot 15   A Parson, much be-mus'd in Beer.

According to GoogleNGram, the use of the word shot up at the beginning of the 20th Century and saw continued growth in use until this century.  I am not bemused by the growing use of a word that expresses befuddlement in our eras of extreme and constant technological and sociological change.