Devoted to technical writing and technical writers

In these modern times, something written or spoken that is BANAL is said to be trite or commonplace. But the origin of the word is rooted in a feudal practice wherein Lords were allowed economic monopolies on certain things like hunting and fishing, timber rights, and other uses of the land. Such lords would then issue bans or regulations. These regulations would typically force all the tenants or serfs to use only the tools, implements, machinery, and the mill owned or controlled by the Lord. Because of this, the French word banalite came up to describe said feudal impositions, and provided the Anglicized term BANALITY to describe a commonplace imposition. Today’s meaning, as we mentioned earlier, has evolved to something else.

sourced by JMJF