Let H be a monoid and π H be the unique extension of the identity map on H to a monoid homomorphism F (H)→H, where we denote by F (X) the free monoid on a set X. Given A⊆H, an A-word z (i.e., an element of F (A)) is minimal if π H (z) =π H (z ) for every permutation z of a proper subword of z. The minimal A-elasticity of H is then the supremum of all rational numbers m/n with m, n∈N + such that there exist minimal A-words a and b of length m and n, resp., with π H (a)=π H (b).Among other things, we show that if H is commutative and A is finite, then the minimal A-elasticity of H is finite. This provides a non-trivial generalization of the finiteness part of a classical theorem of Anderson et al. from the case where H is cancellative, commutative, and finitely generated modulo units, and A is the set A (H) of atoms of H. We also demonstrate that commutativity is somewhat essential here, by proving the existence of an atomic, cancellative, finitely generated monoid with trivial group of units whose minimal A (H)-elasticity is infinite.