【Aurora’s English Vocabulary Diary】No. 14 Baffle/Baffled

Apart from the word “confuse” as a verb or the phrase “I’m confused” to express how we feel about the complexity and uncertainty, which I do say a lot, I learnt the word “baffled” from Jack recently.

(Well, I believe I’ve heard the word so many times from people chatting, but I just didn’t really figure it out😆)

The conversation was like this in the morning –

“Do you need the thick coat or the thin coat?” Jack asked me when we were getting ready to leave the flat for work.

“Mmm, it’s quite warm today so the thin one please.” I said.

Jack picked my thin navy coat for me.

He then said, “I remember when I first met you in summer til winter time you were always wearing the same coat. I was baffled. I was thinking how can she wear the same coat all the time? Then I realised it’s because you’re really quite warm.”

I laughed and couldn’t help but explain a bit more, “Also, I lived in Kingsmere when I first met you. I had to walk to work all the time and walking fast really made me hot! That’s why I didn’t need a thicker coat at all😂”

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Finally, after I asked Jack to explain the word baffled to me, I did some research to practice the pronunciation. I found a TED Talk clip on Youtube and the topic is about quantum mechanics（量子力學）.

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Due to the fact that I had an ex who has a relevant degree of quantum mechanics, and the concept of it is widely discussed in lots of Marvel films, I’ve heard about it a lot for many years. Hence when the speaker in the video said “If you’re not baffled by quantum mechanics, then you haven’t understood it”, I really couldn’t help but chuckle😂

Also, people around me have shared with me that baffle is generally an informal word, even a slang, in speaking contexts.

That’s a wrap!

P.S. Kingsmere is living area where is quite closer to Bicester Village. It took me 15-20 mins walking from the house I used to live to Bicester Village.