I received this "Word of the Day" from Dictionary.com in my e-mail today:
besot \bih-SOT\, verb:
1. To infatuate; obsess.
2. To intoxicate or stupefy with drink.
3. To make stupid or foolish: a mind besotted with fear and superstition.
The prefix be was used in Middle English to denote verbs, as in the contemporary words become and befriend. The word sot referred to an alcoholic.
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I guess we should be happy that Middle Age practice of making verbs by adding "be" to nouns didn't last. Otherwise, today we would talk about insects bebeeing flowers with pollen; or, how the snow storm behoused us for much of the winter. We would have to remember Shakespeare's famous quote as "bebe or not bebe...". Of couse, the B section of dictionary would be a separate volume, or rather, the B section would bevolumed into a back-breaking edition.
Fortunately, English given up its besotted ways and taken on better practices, IMHO, my dear BFF. OMG, AWGTHTGTTA? LOL! TTYL.
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