Sunday Rest: miniseries. Word Not To Use Today.

Miniseries is not, as it might appear, some slightly obscure though lovely quarter of Paris or Tangiers, but a word that's lost its hyphen.

Mini-series.

This lack of obvious identity may be why the recent production I May Destroy You was described as a miniseries even though it had twelve parts.

Sunday Rest: miniseries. The mini- bit of this word comes from Italian, from the Latin miniātūra, from mināre, to paint red. (The link is to the tiny illustrations in illustrated manuscripts.) The Latin word series means a row (as in thing arranged in a line), from serere, to link.

By the way, a mini-series shouldn't last longer than a date - so, four hours, tops. Mind you, to me mini-series conjures up images of eighties shoulder pads and makes me feel old, so I probably wouldn't watch one anyway unless it came guaranteed funny and good-natured. Which they never are.)