Balderdash

[This is a perfect example of my family's sense of humor...]

[A week or two ago, Popbitch told us that the word "trivia" comes from an information kiosk in ancient Rome that was placed at the intersection of three streets ("tri via"). While I thought there was something fishy about this definition, I didn't hesitate to tell Charlotte about it (I always love to bore her with this stuff), and then to pass it along to my family at dinner last Sunday.]

[From today's Popbitch:]

>> Trivial pursuit <<
Where trivia really comes from

We were inundated with emails following our claim last week that the word trivia came from Ancient Rome, from information centres set up where three roads met. Many alternative explanations were given. We're going to go with this, unless someone tells us otherwise.

In the Middle Ages, a university education consisted of the seven Liberal Arts, which divided into two different groupings. Three subject, the Trivium, and the Quadrivium (four ways). The Quadrivium was considered to be the more important course of study - Geometry, Astronomy, Arithmetic, Music. The Trivium was Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric.
So if something was Trivial it was related to the Trivium - the easy things to study.

[Of course that's the correct origin, something I'd read long ago and forgotten. I immediately owned up to Char, Mom, Dad and my sister Kate. Kate's response went like this:]

"Oh the irony here is beautiful. Kind of like that time you corrected my pronounciation of pedant."

[Well, it's true. Once, not long ago, she used the word in a sentence but pronounced it with a long 'e' (IPA [i], for those linguistics pedants out there), and I said "it's PEH-dant." We laughed until our sides ached.]

[Life with the Sharps is a goddamn riot. Sometimes I think of us as a west coast Prairie Home Companion. We make up for our dullness by drinking a lot, though.]

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