“A pedant is a person who is excessively concerned with formalism, accuracy, and precision, or one who makes an ostentatious and arrogant show of learning.”
Wikipedia](Pedant - Wikipedia)
When on the golf course you might say “Wow, I just missed that put, by a hair’s breath” and a voice says, "No, actually it was 1.3 inches!.
Or you say “I’ll just be 5 minutes” and a voice says “No, you were 9 minutes, 23 seconds”
Or you say " That blue Car is mine" and a voice says, “It’s, actually, Cerise!”.
How about when you make a spilling mistake, on a forum?
Whatever happened to tolerance?
No pedants don’t annoy me and AFAIC I’m pretty sure that we all have some habit or characteristic the somebody else somewhere would probably find irritating.
If somebody is going to be pedantic though it helps if they are consistent rather than having them for example complain about a reply being long-winded to ensure accuracy as a result.
It is good to read that pedants are tolerated by most on OFC. I say that because as far as spelling, grammar and punctuation are concerned that is where I am exactly that. No way of changing it either after a 55-year working life in printing, advertising and publishing. Errors simply were not tolerated, that was drummed into me. My training from the start of a trade apprenticeship, at the age of 15 involved ensuring there were no errors in the final printed work. During those years I was also trained in the aesthetics of design – what looks nice and what does not. Yet another learning curve that I find I just cannot change after all those years.
Spellcheckers I cannot tolerate, the errors they often introduce are appalling. I firmly believe the use of spellcheckers has helped towards the decline in today’s standards of spelling, grammar and punctuation. All I can do these days is notice the errors and then I just have to do my best to ignore them.
This was a notice I saw in a customers premises with the big boss’s desk.
“The Pedantic Society”
A humble worker approached the boss.
“Sir, it should be “The Pedants Society””
Life is to short to worry about a pedant, I don’t think I’ve ever met one, or maybe I have, to me it’s whats in the heart of a person, not their spelling or perfection, I can’t be doing with all that.
Sometimes it is circumstances. The nature of my project work, electrical engineering, needed to be precise. The calculations needed correct. I suppose that probably reflected in ordinary life - and in this forum…
I was, I am, I will be, a pedant, where I felt, where I feel, where I will feel it is necessary.
In certain circumstances, pedants are necessary. Sometimes it can mean the difference between life and death. Other times it is an irrelevant annoyance.
I don’t know any personally but online pendants do annoy me, finding it extremely rude and self righteous, I wouldn’t dream of correcting a fellow member’s spelling or grammar,
That is something I would not do, I just ignore errors and anything else that usually in the course of my work, before retirement, I would have had to indicate was incorrect.
😵💫
