quick spelling lesson

[ajva]

Good grief, people don't half make a lot of mistakes with the word minuscule.

For the third time in two days, I've just seen it spelt starting mini-, as in mini-skirt.

Nope.

Two completely different roots, according to my office's Collins Pocket Dictionary of the English Language:

miniature - from Medieval Latin miniare, meaning "to paint red", itself deriving from minium, meaning "red lead" (red lead paint, you see).

minuscule - from Latin minuscula meaning, quite simply, "very small".

So there you go. No further excuses, now. ;o)

Comments

[envoy.livejournal.com]

"people don't half make a lot of mistakes" Hah?

All the more ironic in context really...

[booklectica]

?

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, mini-skirts... *happy thoughts*

Ahem.

Um, how did we get from 'to paint red' to 'tiny copy of'? Did they use a lot of red paint in miniature portraits or something??

[random-goblin.livejournal.com]

my thoughts exactly.. brings new meaning to "paint the town red"

although i now have the image from father ted, with ted trying to explain to dougal the difference between "small" and "far away"

[blakeshell.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to say but mini- as in mini-skirt sounds like a forgivible error to me... But only when you put it that way ;)

[mandrake91.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with you on this, especially considering how "unphonetic" English spelling tends to be. Phonetically speaking, there should be an "i" there to correspond with the pronunciation of the word.

/mInIskj)l/

[adjectivegail]

Reading too much fanfic as I am again, I thought of you earlier when someone wrote 'prostrate' instead of 'prostate'. Weren't you going to do a whole bunch of homynyms and words-that-people-mix-up-in-general at some point...? Or am I just overly hopeful :)