Sunday, February 04, 2007

pedantic

You know how sometimes you can read a dictionary entry all you want and you still don't absorb the essence of the word? That's my pedantic. Please: give me a definition of pedantic; give me examples of its usage; tell me who in your life fits that word. (Gecko? A little help?)

Contrary to having been around the block several times, reading the dictionary as a child, and aspiring to be an intellectual, my English language vocabulary is quite average. I instead focused on growing the same base vocabulary in 6 other languages (French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, Italian, and ASL; I also dabbled briefly in Arabic but had to stop when I could speak it but not read it) rather than expanding my one native language. I'm quirky that way.

4 comments:

Avitable said...

If you and I were quoting The Office, and you said "I loved when Dwight said, 'I am 99% sure that this is not the real Benjamin Franklin, despite what Jim has said.'"

Then I said, "Actually, Poppy, he says, 'I am 99% sure that this is not the real Benjamin Franklin, regardless of what Jim said.'"

I am being one pedantic mofo.

It's used sometimes by people calling someone else childish, but it boils down to being narrowly focused on tiny details that are inconsequential to the point of a story.

Bearette said...

The teacher's lecture was long and overly pedantic; he would not shut up, and was boring us with his leaden words and dry topic.

acw said...

I like to stick with the "unimaginative" definition of pedantic.

Example: Michael Bay's re-hashing of Jaws was, despite the numerous explosions and chase sequences, very pedantic.

Anonymous said...

Many political pundits, liberal or conservative, are pedantic in their analysis, eschewing common ground and attracting only the lemmings who are otherwise unable to critically consider the very issues being discussed, perpetuating narrow-minded viewpoints that keep our country divided.