Pedantry

I feel like I disappeared from the real world recently. I ate something very dodgy and ended up pretty ill and I wasn’t with it properly for about four days. I couldn’t eat and that made me feel really weak after a few days. I felt like some sort of zombie in that I was awake but didn’t really have much of a clue what was going on. I was tempted to write a blog post but it would have been the most non-sensical surreal thing I’d ever written so it’s probably good I left it for a week.

So today I thought I would discuss being a pedant. Let’s open with a definition.

Pedant, n: a person who is excessively concerned with formalism, accuracy, and precision.

I think this may describe me. It’s not exactly a popular thing to be but I can’t really help it. I like things to be right and so often, particularly in the meaning and usage of the language, they are not. It’s very frustrating. My frustration mostly comes from idiots on the TV, but it is known to come from idiots in real life too. I have found it is less socially acceptable to yell at the real-life ones than it is the idiots.

Now appears to be the ideal opportunity to give some examples.

Definitely: It’s not that hard to spell- if you can’t spell it, don’t use it. Defiantly means something different.

H: The letter is pronounced “aitch”, not “haitch”. There is no H in H.

Literally: Do you mean literally or figuratively? It’s not difficult, sort yourself out world.

Lose and Loose: These are two different words with different meanings. Please do not use them interchangeably. It’s ridiculous how often I see people discussing how they are planning to “loose weight” on social networks.

Panini: Many cafes and similar establishments sell “paninis”. They’re wrong. The item is a panino with the plural being panini. It’s Italian. Therefore you can order a panino but not a panini and menus should list panini and not paninis.

Unique: This is an absolute adjective, meaning something either is unique or is not unique. There is no scale of uniqueness. You cannot therefore say “quite unique” or “very unique” or anything along those lines. Either it is unique or it is simply unusual. There are other adjectives which are also absolute but I hear being described in this incorrect way.

That section was very self-indulgent, so I apologise. If I kept thinking about it I could have continued on for some time but I suspect that it may have started to get a little boring.

I am not sure why I feel this way. I like things to be very orderly. I always sort things into some sort of order- usually alphabetical but occasionally numerical or chronological. My DVD collection is a joy of ordering. I always keep to speed limits and I have pretty strict routines. I don’t like to be late for things. It’s the same with words and information. Once I learn something like the meaning of a word then I shall remember it and be frustrated if someone else uses it incorrectly.

I think this is an interesting part of by brain. It’s almost autistic, the “exactly right” feeling. Now I’m not autistic but I have talked here before about being dyspraxic, and dyspraxia has very close links to autism. I’m probably closer to being on the autistic spectrum than most people.

Thankfully, I’m quite good at keeping my pedantic thoughts to myself. I know that is what I should do and being fairly shy I’m not keen to draw attention to myself when I correct other people’s errors. Sometimes though I can’t possibly be a bystander to something stupid or incorrect or both so the pedantic part of my brain overrules the social part and blurts out the correction. As well as silly things like I mentioned above it also includes information. I very much like to know what it going on with my world so tend to pick up information before anyone else. I’ll then overhear people discussing something and know a detail has changed and that’s one of those pedantic moments when I have to hold myself back.

It also happens when people discuss news stories, because they are bound to get something wrong due to knowing little about the subject. Often though I have seen said news story and read an extensive article about it somewhere so I seem to always end up knowing large amounts about the things people are talking about. I don’t really mean to me, but I am something of a know-it-all and I pick up on the little details.

I’m not proud, but I’m pedantic and not correcting other people is a daily battle I face. Do me a favour and stop getting things wrong.