Re: de minimus -Reply

[Joyce Davis <JOYCED@DNFSB.GOV>]

How's this for nit picking:   "De minimus " is not correct usage.  It
is neither english nor latin.  It is a latinism apparently concocted
by people who think all latin words end in ..."us".  (The same kind
of people who make the plural of Elvis, "Elvi".  (I think the plural
of Elvis is Elves, a la crisis, crises  (ha ha))).  Many Latin words
do indeed end in .."us", if they are in the nominative (subject) case
(masculine gender, singular number, first declension).  In an
inflected language like latin, words change endings depending on
their use in a sentence.  "De minimis non curat lex"  means "about
small things the law (lex -- the subject of the sentence) does not
care".  In the phrase "de minimis", "minimis" is the object of the
preposition "de", it takes the ending "..is".  (I should know, I took
3 years of High School Latin long, long ago).
I make this silly point because in many years of trying to "sell" the
idea of de minimis radiation levels, I discovered that some people
more favored with a classical eduation than most US engineers and HPs
immediately discount any idea that is not spelled with classical
precision and consider those who make such a boo-boo semi-illiterate.
 
J P Davis  joyced@dnfsb.gov