Bored by, of, or with?
Which of these expressions should you use: is one of them less acceptable than the others?
Do you ever get bored with eating out all the time?
Delegates were bored by the lectures.
He grew bored of his day job.
The first two constructions, bored with and bored by, are the standard ones. The third, bored of, is more recent than the other two and it’s become extremely common. In fact, the Oxford English Corpus contains almost twice as many instances of bored of than bored by. It represents a perfectly logical development of the language, and was probably formed on the pattern of expressions such as tired of or weary of. Nevertheless, some people dislike it and it’s not fully accepted in standard English. It’s best to avoid using it in formal writing.
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