Newsgroups: alt.slack,alt.religion.kibology
From: mmcirvin@world.std.com (Matt McIrvin)
Subject: Re: B1FF sighting
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 23:04:45 GMT

In article <louisevE29K94.Grs@netcom.com>, louisev@netcom.com (Louise Van
Hine) wrote:

> There you go.  Throw away Merriam and go for the 7th International and 
> you'll see a little notation that the singular "minutia" is almost never 
> used in common English usage, and you'll be much happier.  You'll also 
> find that it's not really French but is direct from the Latin - French 
> doesn't have those little Latinate endings.  My dictionary's bigger than 
> yours, too.

Modern French, no. But the English language has deep roots in the Anglo- Norman French spoken by the medieval nobility. Consider this passage from the climax of Li Chanzonz d'Obik (1099, from the manuscript in the Kibological Library, Oxford). The hero Obik, in a fit of whimsy, decides to blow his elephant-tusk horn for no particular reason:

Li granz Obik est proz maiz tidlibo est sage.
Dist Obik, Il falt que je playz mon oliphant.
Tidlibo dist, maiz ca va romper ton cervel,
Maiz Obik dist ne me esbug a minutiae,
Il playz li oliphant, et son cervel esxplodt.
Li tidlibo il dist, l'eslack mourust Obik.

(From the modern English verse translation by Coolidge Mercer (1976):

Obik was tough but ~ibo was wise.
Obik said, "Now I have to blow my horn."
~ibo warned: "Your head will surely burst!"
Obik: "Don't bug me with minutiae."
He blew the horn, and blammo! went his brain.
~ibo's lament: "'Twas slack that killed Obik.")

The astute reader will have already realized that my a.r.k post about my climactic battle with Lupus Yonderboy was an event-by-event pastiche of this 20,000-line epic poem.

-- 
Matt McIrvin   <http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/>