| 词组 | miniscule, minuscule |
| 释义 | miniscule, minuscule This word is derived from the Latin adjective minusculus and is etymologically related to minus. If you aim to be consistent with its etymology, therefore, you should spell it minuscule. Many people do: • ... was now being followed in minuscule detail — Sports Illustrated, 18 Mar. 1974 • ... measured a surprisingly minuscule amount of noble gases—Science News, 12 Oct. 1985 • two minuscule white geese in the blue water —Elizabeth Bishop, "Poem," in The Complete Poems, 1927-1979, 1983 The spelling miniscule is also extremely common, however. This spelling was first recorded at the end of the 19th century (minuscule dates back to 1705), but it did not begin to appear frequently in edited prose until the 1940s. Its increasingly common use parallels the increased use of the word itself, especially as an adjective meaning "very small." (This sense of the word is fairly new, having been first attested in 1893. In its older senses, both as a noun and as an adjective, minuscule is descriptive of lowercase letters and of several medieval writing styles featuring letters that are simplified and small.) The spelling miniscule presumably owes something to association with the combining form mini- and with such familiar words as minimal and minimum. Our evidence indicates that it now occurs in standard contexts just as commonly as minuscule: • ... a miniscule animal called a rotifer —Johns Hopkins Mag., Spring 1968 • Transistors ... can be miniscule —Center Mag., March/April 1971 • The miniscule size of the cut — Wall Street Jour., 20 Feb. 1974 • ... only a miniscule proportion of these books — Language Arts, April 1980 • ... current profits are miniscule —Science, 26 Sept. 1980 • The miniscule Jewish data —Maledicta 1983 It may be, in fact, that miniscule is now the more common form. An article by Michael Kenney in the Boston Globe on 12 May 1985 noted that miniscule outnumbered minuscule by three to one in that newspaper's data base. Nevertheless, miniscule continues to be widely regarded as a spelling error. No usage commentator will tolerate it, and most dictionaries either omit it or label it erroneous. Our own view is that any spelling which occurs so commonly, year after year, in perfectly reputable and carefully edited books and periodicals must be regarded as a standard variant. You should be aware, however, that you stand some chance of being corrected if you use it. |
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