Muses and muzzles
AMUSE, v., BEMUSED, adj. I really thought, last weekend when I embarked on this newsletter, that this section would be a quick and—apologies—amusing note about these two words and how I never want to say or write any form of “bemused” because nobody will know if I mean “puzzled” or “amused” and either way everybody will assume I’m clueless. It’s like kicking a wasps’ nest. The wasps get angry, you get stung, no one is amused.
Anyway, as you can see from the fact that I was supposed to send this email on October 17 and if all goes well, you’re receiving it on October 24, it was not quick. I thought “amuse” and “bemuse” would come from the same root and maybe have something to do with Greek Muses, and I was barely half right. There are still like twenty tabs about these words open in my browser as I write this, and I just know I’m gonna have to open a few more before I get to the end.
Let’s lay it out: “amuse” in current usage means “to entertain, to make laugh or smile.” It used to mean “to distract” or more specifically “to divert the attention in order to mislead,” which is way more sinister than its current meaning—and also makes sense when you consider that the dictionary definition of “bemused” is “puzzled,” even though many English speakers now use “bemused” as an almost-synonym for “amused.”
AN ASIDE ABOUT “WRONG” USAGE: In my heart I remain a descriptivist, which means I am here to observe how people use language. The ornithologist doesn’t go into the woods to pass judgment on which birds are right and wrong. (Not being an ornithologist myself, I judge the birds in my yard all the time. Mockingbirds are rude as hell.) If birds gradually shift their migration pattern over time, ornithologists don’t say “these uneducated birds are migrating at the wrong time, five out of ten.” (They might say “oh shit, climate crisis,” though.) Anyway, my point is that word usage shifts over time and there is nothing “wrong” about that. “Amuse” doesn’t mean “deceive” anymore, and maybe some day “bemused” won’t mean “puzzled” anymore. That’s just another form of animal behavior for us to observe. Now, when you’re writing for publication and you’re working with a professional copy editor and adhering to a particular style guide, or you’re in a classroom learning to write to a given standard, those are different situations. But most of us are just out here in the woods chirping.
So we’ve got “bemused” as in “confused” and “amuse” as in “deceive.” The semantic connection is clearer. But what does this have to do with the Muses?
Tintoretto, The Muses, 1578. Sourced from Wikipedia. The image is a painting many nude figures, in repose or in flight, against a backdrop of clouds.
Nothing! Except in the sort of sideways sense that when words sound similar, sometimes they influence each other. The various dictionaries I check were all in a hurry to tell me that Alexander Pope wrote the pun “Be-Mus’d,” meaning “devoted to the Muses,” in 1705. So there’s certainly a wordplay connection that goes back at least that far.
But the “muse” in bemused and amuse is actually from Old French “muser,” a verb that means “to ponder,” much like “to muse” in English. There’s a connotation of being lost in thought, wasting time, which connects neatly with the idea that to amuse is to distract. Both the Online Etymology Dictionary and the Trésor de la langue française connect “muse” with an Old French word for “muzzle”—in modern French, the word is “museau”—because I guess there’s the idea of being lost in thought and standing with your nose in the air?
The Oxford English Dictionary is able to track this connection of muzzles and musing through several other Romance languages, including an archaic Italian verb “musare” that has all the following possible meanings: “to idle, loaf around (13th cent.), to gape, wonder (c1300), (of an animal) to hold the snout up, sniff about (15th cent.)”.
Holding the snout up—using the muzzle to muse.
It is probably through contact with the Muses of Greek mythology that “muse” went from lowly “loafing around” to lofty “pondering.”
Speaking of sticking one’s nose in the air, if you’ve been wondering “but did Queen Victoria really say ‘we are not amused’?”, the internet responds “maybe ironically.” And if you’ve been thinking, as I have, of that time ten years ago when Barack Obama said he was bemused—definitely not amused—by having to release his birth certificate to the public, and how this word is so troublesome that there are news articles when a public figure uses it according to its dictionary definition, well, I find that both bemusing and amusing.
In the past couple weeks, I have read a lot of small-r romance. Here are my notes:
Seducing the Sorcerer (m/m, both cis and gay, fantasy) by Lee Welch. This is very charming, and title aside, it’s less about a seduction plot and more about two people who really like each other trying to extricate themselves from complicated circumstances long enough to make a connection. But it does have your classic fantasy sorcerer: black-robed, bearded, mysterious, scheming. He’s delightful, as is his opposite, Fenn the rough, plain-spoken groom. The romance is a quiet, slow burn, which I enjoyed because there’s a lot of focus on these two very different people and the rich world they live in. There’s also a hideous and adorable magic horse. Content guidance from the author.
Paladin’s Hope (m/m, both cis and gay, fantasy) by T. Kingfisher. As this newsletter has amply documented, I fucking love T. Kingfisher, and can I just say it is part of my personal Bisexual Agenda that more series start switching romance flavors between books? The first two books in this series were about men and women falling in love, this one is about two men, and it is my fervent hope that one of the future books will be about two women (and I’d love a nonbinary character as a romance protag, but I’d settle for more of everyone’s favorite practical lawyer-priest, Zale). Anyway, this book is the wild, action-packed answer to a question probably none of us had thought to ask, which is “what if you and your crush were trying to solve a series of murders and then accidentally [spoiler in rot13] tbg genccrq va na napvrag zntvpny qrngu znmr naq unq gb chmmyr lbhe jnl bhg [/spoiler in rot13], and also there was a clever and friendly talking badger working with you?” I am so glad T. Kingfisher both asked and answered this question. It turns out the answer is sweet and funny and involves the venerable romance tradition of Danger Banging, in which people whose lives are on the line find time to do it. Good for them. Good for us, too. Also of note: this book has the word “bemused” in it and is thus responsible for this week’s newsletter. Content guidance from the author.
An Advanced Review Copy of a future book in the Sophie Fournier series (demisexual f/allosexual f, both cis and bi, contemporary) by K. R. Collins. Full disclosure: K. R. Collins is my friend and also one of my co-authors for an upcoming sapphic fantasy series. That means I get to read her books before they come out, which is fantastic for me because I have been waiting so long for Sophie and Elsa, hockey teammates extraordinaire and also roommates and also besties, to figure out that they are in love. Well, technically I’ve only been waiting for Sophie to figure that out. Elsa already knew. Anyway, this sixth installment in the series is coming out in December and it’s got team-as-family and action-packed hockey games and—finally finally finally—kissing. Content guidance for the series: sexism, bullying, emotional abuse (Sophie’s dad is a huge jerk and so is one of her coaches)
If the Boot Fits (m/f, both cis and het, contemporary) by Rebekah Weatherspoon. Rebekah Weatherspoon's books always feel like taking yourself to the spa for an afternoon, or hanging out with all your loved ones while you make brunch, or, say, spending the weekend at a beautiful ranch in California—just warm and uplifting and relaxing. This Black romance retelling of Cinderella between an Oscar-winning actor and a downtrodden personal assistant (to a true evil-stepsister of an actress) is delightful, and I always love how Weatherspoon writes beautiful, self-confident fat characters. That used to be a rarity in romance and it’s becoming more common because of writers like her. Content guidance: main character is in an abusive employment situation, fatphobic comments from minor characters, sex.
Strong Wine (bi cis m/nonbinary character attracted to men, fantasy) by A.J. Demas. This is the third and final book in Demas’s fantasy-ancient-Mediterranean trilogy that starts with Sword Dance and it is wonderful. Damiskos and Varazda get separated from each other by the plot and prove their love by standing up for each other in public. I read the whole thing in an afternoon and will go back for a second round as soon as I can. Content guidance: murder, transphobic comments from minor characters, sex.
Iron Widow (f/m/m, all cis?? and bi, sci-fi/fantasy, young adult) by Xiran Jay Zhao. This book is perhaps romance-adjacent, but shh, let’s talk about it anyway: it’s blistering. Set in an imagined, futuristic version of ancient China full of aliens and giant mecha—that run on the qi of their two human pilots and have traits from the five elements—and starring a female protagonist based on China’s first and only female emperor, this book takes its bonkers amazing premise and blasts the fuck off. Chapter one starts “For eighteen years, my unibrow has saved me from being sold into a painful, terrifying death,” which is a hell of a sentence. The mechs in this world need a male pilot and a female “concubine-pilot,” who will most likely die when her co-pilot exhausts her qi in battle. Families are eager to sell their daughters to the war effort despite this because it’s revered in addition to paying well. I love a Furious Murder Girl and Wu Zetian is the most furious and the most murderous; she doesn’t just want vengeance for her dead sister, she wants to take apart the world that sold and killed her. This is a dark story, angry about misogyny and capitalism and exploitation, but it also has its tender moments. Zetian slowly letting her guard down with her best friend from back home and her assigned co-pilot—and then all three of them letting their guard down with each other—was really great, and I so appreciate that the main characters recognize and discuss the fluidity of gender and eventually discover (spoiler, but not really) that the gender-based magic system is bullshit. (I wrote “cis??” above because I am not sure how to label the gender of someone who prefers embodiment as a giant mech, but it doesn’t feel cis.) Content guidance: death of a sibling, so many other deaths, emotional and physical abuse, murder, violence, torture, alcoholism, needles, sex.
