trivia

• n. トリビア

ラテン語のtrivia, three-wayから、trivium, three-wayで複数形、tri-, three, via, roadから、語源的にはwayと同じ。語源 公共の場、噂話、後にトリビア、些細なことを指すようになった。

trivia (n.)

"trivialities, bits of information of little consequence," by 1932, from the title of a popular book by U.S.-born British aphorist Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) first published in 1902 but popularized in 1918 (with "More Trivia" following in 1921 and a collected edition including both in 1933), containing short essays often tied to observation of small things and commonplace moments. Trivia is Latin, plural of trivium "place where three roads meet;" in transferred use, "an open place, a public place." The adjectival form of this, trivialis, meant "public," hence "common, commonplace" (see trivial). The Romans also had trivius dea, the "goddess of three ways," another name for Hecate, perhaps originally in her triple aspect (Selene/Diana/Proserpine), but also as the especial divinity of crossroads (Virgil has "Nocturnisque hecate triviis ululata per urbes"). John Gay took this arbitrarily as the name of a goddess of streets and roads for his mock Georgic "Trivia: Or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London" (1716); Smith writes in his autobiography that he got the title from Gay.

I KNOW too much; I have stuffed too many of the facts of History and Science into my intellectuals. My eyes have grown dim over books; believing in geological periods, cave dwellers, Chinese Dynasties, and the fixed stars has prematurely aged me. ["Trivia," 1918 edition]

Then noted c. 1965 as an informal fad game among college students wherein one asked questions about useless bits of information from popular culture ("What was Donald Duck's address?") and others vied to answer first.

Nobody really wins in this game which concentrates on sports, comics and television. Everyone knows that Amos's wife on the "Amos 'n' Andy Show" is Ruby, but who knows that she is from Marietta, Georgia? Trivia players do. They also know the fourth man in the infield of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, the Canadian who shot down Baron Von Richtofen, and can name ten Hardy Boy books. ["Princeton Alumni Weekly," Nov. 9, 1965]

The board game Trivial Pursuit was released 1982 and was a craze in U.S. for several years thereafter.

1. The newspaper is now weighted in favour of trivia .

この新聞は今、レースの記事を報道する傾向にある。

2.We spent the whole evening discussing domestic trivia .

私たちは一晩中家庭の些細なことについて話しています。

3.She was not interested in the trivia of gossip.

彼女は些細なデマに興味がない。

4.Much of our research is wasted on trivia .

私たちの多くの研究は、取るに足らない些細なことに浪費されています。

5.The two men chatted about such trivia as their favourite kinds of fast food.

この2人の男は、お互いの大好きなファーストフードのような些細なことを雑談していた。