Pedantry can be a popular activity. A recent case is found in this news story about a physicist in England who chastised Katie Melua over the lyrics in one of her songs. Her crime? Saying the edge of the universe was 12 billion light years away when the correct number is apparently 13.7 billion. In addition, the physicist took grave offense at her claim that this number is just a guess.
This display of pedantry seems a bit too ostentatious for me. I prefer to keep my pedantry local and somewhat covert. For example, say you’re in a grocery story and hear someone say, “I’m chomping at the bit…”, you could just silently sidle up next to him and utter, “That’s champing, not chomping” and then quickly walk away. Or if someone says, “I have less dollars…”, you can, as you walk by, let out, “that’s fewer dollars, not less”. And you could do this for any subject matter at all. If someone, for example, refers to the recent NHL work stoppage as a strike, you can, as you glide by effortlessly, whisper, “It was a lockout, not a strike”. They’ll never know what hit them.
Mind you, I’m more likely to be a victim of an act of drive-by pedantry (or, my inner pedant inquires, "is that pedanticism?") than a perpetrator. I’m not smart enough to be a pedant (though I’d sure like to be).
2 comments:
You break me up...I mean, crack me up.
Um, hate to be a stickler for details, but is it break up or crack up? Although the two seem similar, there are some subtle differences. Break is a more general term referring to the violent separation of pieces of a formerly whole object while crack is, technically, a breakage without a necessary complete separation of...oh, sorry. I didn't notice that you've nodded off to sleep, so I'll just continue without you...ahem, to crack is to...(*10 hours later*)...so in conclusion, I think you should be as precise as possible; otherwise you'll end up...say, you sure like sleeping.
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