Who taught: Robin (How I met your mother)

Smitten (source: http://onekindofme.blogspot.com/)

I feel like I am not doing a good job of keeping up with new posts more often these days. But, that does not mean that I am not learning any new English expressions any more. There are still so many new ones that I get to know by talking to my friends, hearing what other people talking and watching TV shows. One of the shows I enjoy a lot is “how I met your mother” that is on CBS. A few weeks ago, there was an episode where Barney met a girl whose name is Nora. And he was thinking of her many times. Well, that is pretty much what he is doing all the time in the show. Anyway, in the episode, he was having a conversation with Robin about the issue with Nora. And, Robin said, “Barney, you are totally smitten by Nora.” “No, I am not,” said Barney. Well, that was my first time hearing the expression, “smitten.”

I was confused again because the verb, “smite,” means “hit hard.” So, for example, if I smite you, that means I hit you so hard that you are kind of hurt. If I take the expression Robin used directly, then it could simply mean that Barney was hit hard by Nora physically so that he now got hurt. But, as always, “smitten by someone” does not have anything to do with hitting someone. Suppose that you are smitten by Angelina Jollie, then it means you find her so attractive that you are falling in love with her. I know… I know.. Almost every man in the world is smitten by Angelina Jollie, right? Now, I kind of think hitting has something to do with here. Maybe, the one who are smitten is mentally hit so hard by a girl or a boy that he/she cannot forget about her/him. 🙂

Interesting thing is after I got to know this expression from watching the show, I have heard this expression many times from TV. Probably more than 10 times. Is it a new one in the block? Are people starting to use this one these days? Also, another thing I found on the Internet is that there is an argument about which preposition should be followed. Is it on, with or by? From my understanding, it should be “by.” What do you think? Which preposition do you use?

Now, practice time! If you are married or have a girl friend or boy friend, you should say to her/him today, like “Babe! I am totally smitten by you. Do you know that?”