It seems that "enamored" can be used with any of the prepositions "of", "with", and "by". What is the proper usage for each?
This is the sentence I'm writing:
The team, enamored with this new metaphor, spent much of the remaining time brainstorming ways to apply those principles to the project.
"By" sounds the most natural to me in that context, and "of" sounds stilted. "With" is somewhere in between.
Answer
Looking at Google Ngrams, British English seems to use nearly exclusively "enamoured of", while American English uses both "enamored of" and "enamored with". "Enamo(u)red by" is quite rare on both sides of the pond. I would probably say "enamored of" when talking about a person, an animal, or an abstract idea, and "enamored with" when talking about a tangible object. I can't tell whether this is just me, or American usage in general. After looking at some examples on Google, I can say lots of people don't follow this rule.
He was enamored with his new model airplane.
He was enamored of the idea of running his own business.
But all three of these prepositions are acceptable grammar, and all three should be understood equally well.
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