While I haven't been there, I know of it from Alan Furst's novels (which I recommend) -- he writes novels set before and during WWII and likes to often set them in places like Thessaloniki/Salonika in Greece and Trieste in Italy -- places which were on the border between two (or more) cultures and which lost a lot of their multicultural status due to the war.

English is a very beautiful language. There are many ways to say something similar, but each have slightly different meanings. In this case, the writer decided to use "flowery" language, which is usually to create a detailed picture, smell, and feeling for the reader. The point is not only to convey facts but to convey a sense of place. That is the reason for the complicated language.

For example, it says: "A woman in her forties sits on a bench, fixing the shrine with her gaze."

This means that the woman sits on a bench looking at the shrine. But "fixing" it "with her gaze" means that she is staring at it with deep meaning and (possibly) reverence.

> For example, it says: "A woman in her forties sits on a bench, fixing the shrine with her gaze."

This particular example I don't think is poetic rather it is broken.

At least in British English it’s perfectly fine. A bit poetic, but not an obscure construction.

> I don't think is poetic rather it is broken.

No, it is not. You are merely unfamiliar with this sentence construction.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/fix-a-g...

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/thesaurus/fix-one-s-gaze

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/fix+his+with+a+gaze

The construction wasn't "fixing her gaze on the shrine" (which would be correct), it was "fixing the shrine with her gaze", which makes no sense. What the article says means either "she fastens the shrine into place using her eyes" or "she repairs the shrine with her eyes".

Indeed, the construction gives the feeling that the shrine itself might float away without her gaze, such is the intensity of her watching it. That is purposeful. It comes from the common phrase "she fixed him with her gaze" which means, not as much that her gaze was fixed on him, as that he froze when he saw her looking at him.

I think it was a conscious and valid choice to use this in relation to a static holy object in this context.

GP post cites Collins defining "fix a gaze on"! https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/fix-a-g...

Yes Collins knows about it.

Even this lesser-known site knows about it: https://texttospeech.io/thesaurus/gaze

> Definition of gaze: (n): a long fixed look; "he fixed his paternal gaze on me"

We are talking about 'fixing smth with a gaze' and not 'fixing gaze on smth'. The verb, the object and the subject are different.

A dictionary doesn’t capture the entire language. In this thread there are native speakers saying that this is a well formed, meaningful English sentence. Therefore it is.

Are there? Where? Point at one? Two?

To me that says her gaze is fixing the shrine.

What meaning do you infer from what it says?

What it means. The most annoying about that quote is that it is a correct sentence, with one single trivial meaning. Easy right? Your favorite type of sentence. Well guess what, in the text it stands for a totally different thing (without any particular reason or benefit).

I much prefer GP's broken sentence. It is syntactically broken, but it has all the words, much better than if it was syntactically correct with an entirely different meaning than the intended one.

> who says that?

People who watch US TV shows about the American South. Having lived there for awhile and still travel there for work today, I can say with some certainty that the folksy dialect that media gives to people of that region is either largely embellished or made-up. If we stay on the word "fix," I mostly hear it in context of someone making a meal ("Fixing breakfast," etc). The Appalachian regions are must more creative and cant-like with the language historically, but even that is being lost as the generations are exposed to more modern settings, I think. In my experience, the idioms used usually come down to the individual, which has more to do with how their sense of identity was cultivated, a concept that runs quite deep in the American South, but that is a much longer and more complex thread for another day, I reckon.

"("Fixing breakfast," etc)." Yes, this makes sense, you can fix ('make', off the top of my head, only used in this sense for cooking really) breakfast, but surely the author doesn't mean the woman was materializing/cooking a shrine as a dish with her eyes either.

Fixing one's gaze on something is a standard English expression, it's just the active form of to be fixed on, which is passive. It means, literally, that one's line of sight is 'fixed upon' something. One's mind can also be fixed upon something. The verb is to fix or to affix. 'Fixed to' simply means 'attached to', but 'fixed on' usually implies something lighter attached to a weightier, possibly vertical surface, or something attached by glue or paste. You can also say that a postage stamp is fixed on an envelope.

It's a great sentence if you understand the different things it is communicating compactly and efficiently.

"fix one's gaze on" is not the construction used in the article.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fix:

to direct one's attention or efforts : FOCUS

also : DECIDE, SETTLE —usually used with on

had fixed on the first Saturday in June

All eyes fixed on her as she entered the room.

Yes, exactly: 'Fixed ON', the eyes are "fixed", it's completely different grammar.

> Subjective of course, but I just think it's a bad sentence.

IDK, you could just look up the idiom that you are unfamiliar with? So that next time you come across it, you are better informed.

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/fix+his+with+a+gaze

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/fix-a-g...

Collins is a counterpoint, right? Well it is, as it doesn't know this phrase.

Thefreedictionary I don't now what that is. I'd be much more convinced if it cited examples from actual usage from books, articles, subtitles. Looks more machine generated to me than human work.

If you want cites google "fix him with your gaze" or "fix it with your gaze" - including the quotes.

It has ~3 results. 1 talks about making something immovable with your gaze with a spell in a fantasy setting. The other 2 are in blogspam articles of German companies, one of them is also available in several other languages, presumably machine translated.

The Collins example is not the same thing; you're fixing your gaze, not fixing the object itself. Again, the grammar just isn't the same.

I have seen this construction before; I'm sorry if you have not. But that does not make it "broken".

"I have seen this construction before" is not a very high bar for communicating well.

Depends on the correct spelling of gaze.

It is not an informative article, it's a piece designed to convey emotions and sentiments so readers are more willing to embrace author's view.

There seems to be an agenda there.

If you check wikipedia at least, the muslim-christian population exchange between Greece and Turkey wasn't quite like the article describes it.

The facts may be somewhere in the middle, but certainly not in this article.

FWIW The Critic is associated with the British conservative movement so there is definitely a leaning to the political right

(This is a comment on the magazine that published TFA, not TFA itself)

You say that as if it’s a bad thing.

Not all writing needs to be as dry as a technical bulletin.

That’s how you do a proper propaganda piece, you write an emotional article that is mostly correct and insert subtle nudges to your actual topic :)

Be glad it's not Pidgin.

That's a broken sentence.

Broken seems a bit harsh. It might not be idiomatic, it might fall foul of some grammatical standard. But you know what it means.