minutiae, sardoodledom, cub reporter, drillmaster/desk , hackneyed, rookie, take a back seat

Pot entrepreneurs are grappling with the minutiae of taxation.

Crucial Question for Jury in Galleon Case: For the prosecution, there is a risk that the jury may get buried in minutiae and lose the bigger picture of Raj Rajaratnam's role, writes Peter J. Henning in the White Collar Watch column for DealBook.


 the minutiae of publishing



sardoodledom (SAR-doo-duhl-duhm)

noun
Plays having contrived melodramatic plot, concentrating excessively on the technique to the exclusion of characterization.

Etymology
After Victorien Sardou (1831-1908), French playwright; coined by playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950).

Usage
"Most of Lubitsch's other plot sources are hackneyed representatives of Sardoodledom." — Gerald Mast; The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies; University of Chicago Press; Aug 17, 2004.

"There is even the Secret of the well-made play, Sardoodledom's ultimate question: who is Godot? Will he come?" — David Bradby, Michael Robinson; Waiting for Godot: Plays in Production; Cambridge University Press; Nov 15, 2001. (© Wordsmith Words)

Body of evidence

The crimes in Simon Beckett's The Chemistry of Death take a back seat to his convincing and tortured protagonist, says Killian Fox

The irony that haunts David Hunter is the best thing about Beckett's novel. So well versed in the minutiae of death, he cannot come to terms with its most fundamental mystery: what becomes of the life that is taken away? As a whodunit, this is certainly a cut above the average, with a convincing central character, a gripping plot and a fine store of morbid information. In contrast to the story's original angle, however, the crimes themselves seem a little bit hackneyed.

When I was a cub reporter, the desk was quite strict about not using cliches in our stories. "Me o shirokuro," or "roll one's eyes in surprise," was one of those hackneyed expressions we were never, ever, supposed to use.
Also unacceptable to our drillmaster/desk was "shogeki ga hashiru," which translates literally as "shock waves run." Office legend has it that when a rookie made the mistake of resorting to this cliche, the desk wrote "shogeki" in big letters on a sheet of paper, stuck it on the back of the hapless rookie, and made him run around the newsroom.

take a back seat
to choose not to be in a position of responsibility in an organization or activity

hackneyed
adjective DISAPPROVING
describes a phrase or an idea which has been said or used so often that it has become meaningless or boring:
The plot of the film is just a hackneyed boy-meets-girl scenario.


cub reporter noun [C]
a young person being trained to write articles for a newspaper

drill・master

教練教官; 厳しい指導員.

hack・neyed

-->

━━ a. 古臭い, 陳腐な.
⇒hackney

rook・ie

--> ━━ n. 〔俗〕 新兵; 〔米〕 【野】新人選手, ルーキー; 新米.

minutiae

Syllabification: mi·nu·ti·ae

Pronunciation: /məˈn(y)o͞oSHēˌē, -SHēˌī

 

/

(also minutia /-SHēˌə, -SHə/)

noun

the small, precise, or trivial details of something: the minutiae of everyday lifeMore example sentences

• He added it was only possible to iron out the minutiae of the details once the centre was open.
• Most of us have been too caught up in the everyday minutiae to be bothered.
• Frankly, I find the minutia of everyday life much more interesting than the glaring important life changing events that shape our lives.

minutiae

• [minjúːʃiìː | -njúː-]

[名](複)（▼単数形は-ti・a 〔-i〕）((通例the 〜))（…の）細目, 詳細((of ...)).