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

[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/