Tricky English: Let’s enjoy every ‘minute’
By Dr Birbal Jha*
Let’s talk about how English grammar functions on a linguistic note, particularly with the word ‘minute’. Interestingly and linguistically, ‘minute’ is a noun, an adjective, a verb and a conjunction as well. Noticeably, the magic ‘e’ remains effective in case it is used as an adjective resulting in its pronunciation as /mʌɪnjuːt/. In contrast, it sounds /mɪnət/ as a noun or a verb, rendering the magic ‘e’ ineffective.
If you pay minute attention and absorb information on the subject minutely, this minute-by-minute discussion on grammatical notes will enlighten you no end, and thus you’ll begin to enjoy every minute of what you are learning in the course of linguistic pursuit. Therefore, you are required to take the minutes of what a grammarian is minuted as having gone on record on the linguistic school of thought.
To be precise about the language learning process, you had better jot down all the main points of how a word has to be used in varied contexts and parts of speech, consulting a standard lexicon like the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. You need to make a sincere effort to have a clear concept of how language patterns function in the English language.
Broadly speaking, the minute (that) you begin to understand how a word is used in different contexts, you’ll start thinking of English as being easy, simple and full of fun and frolics. For example, minute as a noun means one of the 60 parts of an hour as in ‘it takes me minutes to prepare my mind to write something’.
For an extended meaning, a registered company is under obligation to do minutes of the proceedings and maintain a minute book. Further, the employees are supposed to follow the minute instructions given by the office. Minute is used in spoken English to mean a very short time as in ‘give me a minute’ or ‘I won’t be a minute’.
Moreover, you can’t ignore the phrasal and idiomatic expressions of the tiny word minute which means the period of time equal to sixty seconds or a sixtieth of an hour. Two proverbs with ‘minute’ are worth minuting here.
One is ‘a committee is a group of men who keep minutes and waste hours’ which is a pun meaning committees take a very long time to accomplish something. Another is ‘there’s one born every minute/ there’s a sucker born every minute’. This is used to express the opinion that the person being discussed is stupid and can be easily swindled.
Minute is used as a verb as well to mean– to make a written record of what is said or decided at a meeting as in ‘The proceedings are fully minuted in the minute book’. When it comes to using the minute (that) as a conjunction, it means ‘as soon as’ as in ‘Your feedback on this piece is expected the minute you are done with reading it. Further, frivolous people are often reported to say something one minute and do something different the next minute.
Look at an idiom- A mile a minute. At our institute, the British Lingua, the trainees are advised not to talk a mile a minute as clear communication serves the purpose. Speaking something hurriedly is to no avail.
Being up-to-the-minute when it comes to having linguistic skills is always advisable. Let’s try to assimilate the minutest detail of the minute for that matter any other words by looking them up in an authentic dictionary.
*The writer is a noted author, accredited with having created a revolution in English training In India with the slogan ‘English for all’.
