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Besotted.


seb v.

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Here is a list of synonyms for besotted:

 

Synonyms: blind drunk, blotto, crocked, cockeyed, fuddled, loaded, pie-eyed, pissed, pixilated, plastered, potty, slopped, sloshed, smashed, soaked, soused, sozzled, squiffy, stiff, tiddly, tiddley, tight, tipsy, wet

 

It means very drunk. Of course it may be pedantic to point out that the children in these pictures are not besotted, drunk, blotto, loaded, tipsy, or any of those other things.

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Well Elliot, I don't know where you got that list from, but here's a selective list from the New Oxford Thesaurus:

Infatuated with, smitten with, in love with, head over heels in love with, hopelessly in love with, obsessed with, passionate about, consumed with desire for, etc. ad nauseam.

 

The three definitions given in the Collins dictionary are: 1. stupified with drink; intoxicated. 2. infatuated; doting. 3.foolish; muddled.

 

Obviously the root meaning comes from sot, a drunkard, but... by extention (you know how languages bloom over the years) it adds nuances, inflexions and then, dare I say it, new meanings. Perhaps being in love is a sort of drunkenness.

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Actually, Eliot, throughout litiature, the word is used to express enchantment or love, but its use arises from the definition you cite. In other the quite valid expression " He was besotted with love for her. Meaning literally he was drunk with love for her..idiomatically he was head over heels, friggen wacked out with love for her...

Get it? Discussion of photos resume...

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Several sources list only drunk. If you take the other meanings you list (infatuated; doting; foolish; muddled) I still don't understand how these pictures relate to that meaning. Are they supposed to show that the children are infatuated or foolish? OK, say he meant the photographer is infactuated with the children, that's pretty oblique and is not communicated by these pictures to me.
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I like these very much, Seb. As between the darker #1 and the lighter #4, I cannot say one is better. They're just different. And they're both good.<p>

 

Eliot, I'm sure you'll agree that we're facing a far more daunting vocabulary issue over on <a href=http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00FJfF&tag=200602170502>this thread</a>. :)

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Eliot whatever your dictionaries tell you, using the word "besotted" to mean infatuated is a usage that I and apparently seb and other members of the forum are familiar with. In fact, as soon as I saw the title of the thread I expected it would be someone's pictures of his daughter. Had I seen this title 40 years ago I would have thought the same thing; my Shakespeare professor used it to describe Lear's feelings toward one of his daughters (name?).
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