Skip to main content

Fraziled

This morning while I was hunting around for a synonym for the noun vigil (it sounds a bit too archaic, and watch is overused) I noticed Dictionary.com's word of the day: frazil. I'd never before seen the word, and I really don't like when that happens, so I clicked on the link for the definition, as follows:

The relatively uncommon noun frazil “ice crystals formed in turbulent water, as in swift streams or rough seas,” comes from Canadian French frasil (also frazil, fraisil), an extension of French fraisil “coal cinders, coal dust.” French fraisil is an alteration of Vulgar Latin adjective facilis “pertaining to a torch or firebrand,” a derivative of the Latin noun fax (inflectional stem fac-) “torch, light.” It is unsurprising that frazil first appeared in the Montreal Gazette in the winter of 1888.

From light to fire to ice, what do you know. It's a Robert Frost of a word -- really, you could build a poem out of the meaning and evolution of frazil. I love finding things like this. Made my whole day, really.

Last night I read a bit of a currently popular NA novel I purchased to get another sample of the genre, and felt a very different kind of awe: I could not believe how badly it was written. No, really, imagine the worst, multiply that by a factor of ten, and you'll get close to what the actual reading experience was like for me.

The profanity alone could have set a record; I think the eff word appeared on every single page multiple times. Everyone used it, too; all the characters were basically the same character with the same personality in different bodies. The plot, you ask? No plot. Just lame excuses for stomach-turning sex scenes and badly thought-out violence and absolutely pointless juvenile confrontations, none of which made any logical sense whatsoever given the ages and social positions of the characters. The romance, if you could call it that, was utterly ridiculous. I ended up chuckling through most of that (and trust me, the author was definitely not trying to be funny.)

Although it wasn't about vampires, it had a kind of bizarre Twilight feel to it, too. I think the author watched those movies a little too often and ended up writing another, more twisted version than even that Fifty Shades gal did. Finally I waded my way through all this crap right up to the black moment, at which point I gave up and set the book aside. It's really not nice to snicker at someone's earnest efforts. Also, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, which made it impossible to read any more.

I know reader expectations have dropped considerably over the last couple of years, but if this kind of crap is what they expect, they haven't set the bar too low. There simply is no bar.

Image by me while in the Smoky Mountains, circa 2013

Labels:

Comments

nightsmusic said…
I'm not so sure it's reader expectations as much as it's an inability to comprehend great writing because there's no great writing being read in schools anymore. What do you expect when you see blog posts by the younger generation written in 'text' speak? They don't understand the power of words anymore let alone how to use them. Or understand them when they're reading them so hey, crappy writing doesn't bother them because they have no ability to discern one from the other.

Sorry, rant over.
January 4, 2021 at 3:40 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.
Post a Comment
Read more

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to
Post a Comment
Read more

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more