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title, date, permalink, tags
| title | date | permalink | tags | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expedient | 2024-07-01T15:18:21-05:00 | /expedient/ |
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I mentioned yesterday that I'm doing a bunch of fun reading on this mini-vacation, but failed to note (unless you happen to follow my Bookwyrm self) that a key chunk of the reading I'm doing is catching up on the parts of Robin Sloan's universe that I've previously missed, in preparation for reading his latest, Moonbound. I got my pre-ordered copy the other day and can't wait to dive in.
Now, however, it's Sourdough. Which I'm thoroughly enjoying, and which has me longing to start a culture (or clone someone else's) and get started baking, even though we really don't eat a lot of bread at home.
As I was reading yesterday, though, I was taken by his use of the term "expedient," which comes up one time after another across the story of life in the tech-dominated Bay Area. Our heroine purchases stuff at "an expedient internet retailer" and "the expedient big-box home-supply store." She gets a ride from "the expedient internet car service" and gets information from "the expedient search engine." And more besides.
I was fairly sure I got what was meant here, but reading on the iPad as I am, I finally paused to check, and was gifted with the following definition from the New Oxford American Dictionary:
(of an action) convenient and practical although possibly improper or immoral.
Convenient, I had totally expected, with a little bit of "perhaps not the best choice, but what are you going to do" behind it. But that edge of "possibly improper or immoral" casts a whole new light not just on the term but on my own utterly unthinking uses of those services, a light I too often find it pretty inconvenient and impractical to consider.