Characters in “From Lark Rise to Candleford” – Dorcas in Front
I often think (fondly, I might say) of Postmistress Dorcas Lane in the BBC television drama “From Lark Rise to Candleford.” She was a problem-solver of the first order but also made her share of mistakes. Each time she was caught out she would say, “It’s my one weakness, after all.” And every weakness was a different one.
Well, I want to tell you that I, too, have one weakness. It’s those blasted FaceBook quizzes. Whether it’s “Which Johnny Depp Character Are You?” or “What State Should You Live In?” or even the latest one – “Which Five Words Do You Use The Most?” – to make the rounds, I am a complete push-over for them. They are my one weakness.
It doesn’t even bother me much that there are warnings out about those most used words quizzes – a privacy nightmare, we are told. I think I gave up on the whole “privacy” issue a long time ago. I’m not sure that the word has meaning any more. Certainly not in relationship to FaceBook and the internet. So, despite all, I did let the site scan all my FaceBook entries (or whatever they do) to learn about my five most used words.
My five words?
Top of the list: ‘Oysterville.’ No surprise there! Especially since I post my Oysterville Daybook blog on FaceBook every day of the year. Besides, Oysterville is my one weakness. Next on the list: ‘event.’ Again, a no-brainer. I write a lot about events – Peninsula events, across-the-river events, news events. But it was the third word that gave me pause: ‘shock.’ Really? Hard to believe!
So, I did a scan of all of my blogs. The word ‘shock’ came up a surprising (you might say ‘a shocking’) number of times. Recent usage often had to do with the news, but I found twenty-five blogs in which I use ‘shock’ – in some cases, multiple times. The first was in 2011 and I have been shockingly consistent since then! That came as a big wake-up call – like maybe I’d better work on my vocabulary!
How many rays on her xcrown?
The last two words: ‘today’ and ‘people.’ Those certainly sound like me. I know I’m a people person and I’d like to think that, despite my penchant for history (my one weakness!), I am more concerned about the here and now. But, I can’t really believe that ‘chickens’ or ‘Woot! Woot!’ or ‘gobsmacked’ didn’t come up. Surely, I use those words more than ‘shock.’
I usually don’t follow the quiz-masters’ suggestion to post my results on FaceBook. It’s not the matter of privacy that stops me. It’s more a reluctance to expose my quirks and foibles. Those I prefer to keep to myself. It’s my one weakness.
I understand and I admit I ignore these wonderful opportunities. I also don’t copy and share when share will do. And lately, emailing my congress rep isn’t enough. I’m supposed to make long distance calls. There are many good causes in the world, but a person would have to stop living to keep up with only a fraction of them. My weakness is that I prefer to scroll on by most of these tests and phone call and copy and post requests.