Administrivia

Today's word really IS a wonderous word:   administrivia.  Do you hate the administrative part of your job, doing the tedious stuff that keeps things running?  Martha Spong talked about administration on her blog a couple of days ago:  administration in relation to doing ministry:

Administration is not a dirty word.  Many pastors think of administration as the lesser task in their work, a distraction from the “real” ministry, or even describe it as being nibbled to death by ducks.  Yet the work of organizing events, infor-mation, and people can be a form of ministry and doing it more effectively can become a practice that makes ministry possible instead of detracting from it.  Administration literally means “near to ministering” (from the Latin, ad + minister).  The adjunct professor [her former teacher] defined it as drawing others out for ministry.  I have come to think of it as drawing ministry out of myself and others, by organizing myself and helping them to do the same.

Don't you love "nibbled to death by ducks"?  And after another couple of paragraphs, she wrote about someone whose "job includes a lot of administrivia."  In this context, I assumed she had invented the word on the spot.  I looked it up just in case, and and found that it IS a word.

administrivia:  routine paperwork and other administrative tasks that are regarded as trivial, uninteresting, and time-consuming; the tiresome but essential details that must be taken care of and tasks that must be performed in running an organization; administrative details that must be dealt with in order to do more interesting work.

Thank you, Martha. I learned a new word.

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme by BermudaOnion where we share new words that we have encountered or spotlight words that we love. These are the words that intrigued me this week.