The common lingo among sea glass collectors seems to be that we go out and find "shards" of sea glass. At the NASGA annual Sea Glass Festival, they give awards to the "Shard of the Year."
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| These are not "shards," of glass! |
"Shards," to me, is what you end up with after you drop a bottle on a tile floor: Lots of sharp angular pieces of glass that will cut your hands to shreds, unless you handle them with extreme care-- or kevlar glass gloves.
To call a beautiful, soft, rounded and frosted piece of sea glass a "shard," just seems very unkind to me-- it's far too "rough" a term, to describe such a beautiful gem-like object.
I am also a rock and mineral collector. In mineral collecting, the freshly broken stones/crystals from a mine are referred to as "rough." Anything that has been "worked," at all gets a new more "polished" name: cabochon, slab, sphere, cluster...
Sea glass HAS been worked-- even if it isn't by humans. The ocean has "polished" it. Even if it's a pretty boring description, I'd rather refer to my sea glass as being "pieces," rather than "shards."
Just saying...
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