Is a single factoid a trivium?
I was writing a comment on another website, and considered introducing it with a piece of trivia. My classical education kicked into gear, and I wanted to say "Relevant trivium: ..."
I realize I could circumvent my quandary by saying "Relevant piece of trivia: ..." but now I am curious - if the dictionary.com definition of trivia is
plural noun
1. matters or things that are very unimportant, inconsequential, or nonessential; trifles; trivialities.
Is there a place for the singular "trivium"? That word was used in the Middle Ages to indicate the first three of seven "core curriculum" subjects taught at University: grammar, logic and rhetoric. The next four subjects were arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy (the quadrivium).
That suggests that the word is taken - but I don't know that for sure.
So at the risk of breaking the rules - here are two questions:
Can one use "trivium" to indicate a single piece of trivia? And if not, what would be the recommended alternative?
Factoid was the only one that sprang to mind. Are there any others?
To answer the question more pedantically... trivia is a back-formation from trivial (at least according to MW, and Oxford sort-of agrees).
Is trivium is a valid further back-formation? Surely that depends on whether you think that trivia is the plural of a count noun, or a mass noun. I agree with Oxford, which thinks it's a mass noun, and so forming a singular out of it doesn't make complete grammatical sense.
BUT that in no sense implies it can't be used as an amusing coinage - it's every writer's right to break the rules for comic effect. And it could in due course gain currency through use, in which case trivia would presumably transition to being the plural of a count noun.
PS. Incidentally, I noticed in the process of writing this that Oxford thinks a factoid is specifically an unreliable fact. I'm not sure I quite agree that's how the word is actually used, but perhaps be careful.
No. I don't know Latin but I know a road's not a vium, but a via. Trivia derives from the intersection of three roads. Google tells me the plural is viae. Via is already the singular.
A "factoid" has truthiness, whereas a "fact" has truthfulness. This is especially important in light of recent pronouncement from Washington DC. Although the euphemism du jour is now "alternate fact". AKA, a lie.
As for "trivium", it should be obviously construed as a single item of trivia, to readers with even a modicum of knowledge of how latinate words work. (Or perhaps only to those of us those with optima, or quasi maxima of knowledge. I suspect that we amateur lexicologists are the only ones who really care about such things anyway. Consider the audience; YMMV ).
By comparison: "agenda", a plural, is now generally construed as a singular noun, with a typical plural of "agendas" (or sometimes, "agenda".) "Agendum", though rarely used, is clearly (to us) one item on an agenda, but is now dually defined, at least in one dictionary, with the primary meaning of "agenda". That is, the singular "agendum" is equated with the singular "agenda", which has a plural of either "agenda" or "agendas".
(see http://www.dictionary.com/browse/agendum )
Would it be better to coin "agendoid"? Or "agendicule"? Or "trivicule"? I think not.