They would be pleased to learn that a
man is called 'supercilious,' because haughtiness with contempt of
others expresses itself by the raising of the eyebrows or
'supercilium'; that 'subtle' (subtilis for subtexilis) is literally
'fine-spun'; that 'astonished' (attonitus) is properly thunderstruck;
that 'sincere' is without wax, (sine cera,) as the best and finest
honey should be; that a 'companion,' probably at least, is one with
whom we share our bread, a messmate; that a 'sarcasm' is properly such
a lash inflicted by the 'scourge of the tongue' as brings away the
_flesh_ after it; with much more in the same kind.
'Trivial' is a word borrowed from the life. Mark three or four persons
standing idly at the point where one street bisects at right angles
another, and discussing there the idle nothings of the day; there you
have the living explanation of 'trivial,' 'trivialities,' such as no
explanation not rooting itself in the etymology would ever give you, or
enable you to give to others. You have there the 'tres viae,' the
'trivium'; and 'trivialities' properly mean such talk as is holden by
those idle loiterers that gather at this meeting of three
roads. [Footnote: But 'trivial' may be from 'trivium' in another sense;
that is, from the 'trivium,' or three preparatory disciplines,--grammar,
arithmetic, and geometry,--as distinguished from the four more advanced,
or 'quadrivium'; these and those together being esteemed in the Middle
Ages to constitute a complete liberal education.
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