small beer

****************************************************************
Prepare the whole family for another school year with a subscription to 
Merriam-WebsterUnabridged--free trial now available!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged_sub.pl?refr=U_wod 
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for August 5 is:

small beer   \SMAWL-BEER\   noun
     1 : weak or inferior beer
    *2 : something of small importance : trivia

Example sentence: 
     The player was fined $10,000 by the league for his comments about the 
opposing pitcher, but that's small beer when you consider his $15 million 
salary.

Did you know? 
     "Small beer" dates from Shakespeare's day. The Bard didn't coin it (he 
would have been just a child in 1568, the date of the first documented instance 
of "small beer"), but he did put the term to good use. In _Henry VI, Part 2_, 
for example, the rebel Jack Cade declares that, when he becomes king, he will 
"make it felony to drink small beer." In _Othello_, Desdemona asks Iago to 
describe a "deserving woman." Iago responds by listing praises for ten lines, 
only to conclude that such a woman would be suited "to suckle fools, and 
chronicle small beer"; in other words, to raise babies and keep track of 
insignificant household expenses. Desdemona quickly retorts, declaring Iago's 
assertion a "most lame and impotent conclusion."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.