What meaning do you infer from what it says?
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.
You can say that someone is 'fixed on' something, which means to look doggedly, but 'fixing something' is totally different, who says that?
Subjective of course, but I just think it's a bad sentence.
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.
Her gaze is fixed upon - her gaze is fixing. Within her field of view, her deliberate staring at the shrine has fixed it in place. Her eyes are fixed in place, focused on the shrine.
‘In place’ is implied by the context.
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.
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...
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're claiming that this is "wrong" then I think that's disproven. I don't even know what the point of that exercise would be. Just finally accept it as an opportunity to learn a new turn of phrase. You don't have to even use it, just accept that others do. IDK what the gatekeeping is about.
If you still feel the need, then IDK, write a strongly worded letter about it to the editor of The Critic? It says "Britain's Most Civilised Magazine" on the home page. Have at it, present your credentials, see if you get anywhere.
Or if you don't want to engage with the piece on its own terms, then maybe it's not for you. Not everything is written for everyone, and it's useless to complain about that.
Is a way to raise barriers to your own learning.
I have never said anything was "wrong", I said it was poor communication. Wrong is not a useful concept in language. But the whole point of language is to communicate with others and this sentence is clearly confusing to many people.
I have now downgraded my expectations, learning is indeed optional.
> But the whole point of language is to communicate with others and this sentence is clearly confusing to many people.
Or - hear me out - maybe you're not in the target audience of this piece in "The Critic: Britain's Most Civilised Magazine". Not everything is written for everyone, and it's useless to complain about that. But you should at least be able to identify that it is a particular literate British tone, and know if that's your thing or not. If it is, then dig into the idioms. If it isn't then don't read it.
So I ask you a question and you then don't answer it but instead just reply with sarcasm?
I don't think this is a polite way to have a conversation, so I'm out.
Indeed, everything that I feel needs saying is already in this thread somewhere, including the 2nd para of that comment. Sometimes it's said more than once.
There's no more. You taking meaning from it is in now up to you; as I am not paid to teach, there are strict limits to the effort that I will put into it, especially when unwillingness is demonstrated and lived experience dismissed.
It's a great sentence if you understand the different things it is communicating compactly and efficiently.