You saw it here, first. Remember.

The other day I realized that a person can be amused and a person can be bemused.

I said to S., there must be a cemused, which could perhaps be something in between the first two.

S. said, "It's not in between, it comes after. The letter C comes after A and B." I told him that language does not follow that kind of logic. It's higgledy-piggledy and meant to be played with. I get a lot of amusement out of language (but not cemusement). Amusement and bemusement sound similar but have two very different meanings. And since I invented cemusement I get to pick what the word means. I think of it as the "Option C" of musement.

To be amused (an adjective) one is: "pleasurably entertained, occupied, or diverted". A person "displays amusement" when they are amused. Amusement can be created by making people laugh, for example, with a joke.

To be bemused (an adjective) one is: "bewildered or confused", "lost in thought or preoccupied".

Whether you are amused or bemused, you are caught up in the thought of something. Either it is a fun thought, or perhaps a perplexing one. No matter what you are thinking in either situation, you are not indifferent to whatever is causing you to feel amused or bemused.

Therefore I propose that "cemused" be a glorified word to mean "meh". A person could encounter something that could possibly arouse amusement, or bemusement, but instead a person experiences indifference, or cemusement.

It's kind of like the word whelmed, which I first heard in the movie Ten Things I Hate About You. The character Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) is talking with her friend Chastity (Gabrielle Union), who says, "I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?" Bianca responds, "I think you can in Europe."

A person can just be whelmed; it's in the dictionary. It means "to submerge; engulf" or "to roll or surge over something, as in becoming submerged". Still, though, it's in between underwhelmed and overwhelmed, both of which are very solid feelings. I think of whelmed as being a "meh". Underwhelmed, well, that's very "meh".

Word games!

I need to go and be cemused at work.