How would you deal with this?

[Flossyfloof]

I bet when written down this seems really insignificant it it is so irritating!
I have an acquaintance who, I know, likes me more than I like her. I find her hugely irritating but try not to show it. She has this habit of correcting people. She thinks she is highly intelligent and comments often on how thick others are. I think this is relevant.
Two examples that happened recently - we were talking about advent calendars and I was laughing about the crappy ones we used to have in the 60's. Cardboard, no chocolates or anything behind the doors, just a picture of a ball or something and you always opened 24 early - always to find Jesus Mary and Joseph behind the door of no 24. She leapt in and corrected me "25!" We didn't have 25 doors, we had 24 and I just repeated that - but why correct me in the first place? It just doesn't matter! And she was wrong anyway!
Later, we were talking about a knitting stitch. For the knitters amongst you, I said I dislike rib but really hate moss stitch. She leapt in and said "they're the same thing". They are not - the action is the same but the feel is different because you are kind of going against the grain with moss stitch so it is more awkward, I think.
It really gets on my tits, it interrupts the flow of conversation and I find it rude.
How would you deal with it? Without falling out?
( no idea how long this is, I'm on my phone, can't see! Hope a few people manage to get to the end!! )

My grown up children all still expect advents and would be mortified if it was without chocolate! I actually sourced some of the glitter ones from a local fair the other day and was so pleased with my find. :)

Oh yes, a bloody drum! Did you look forward to seeing that one, Pregnantat50?
Yes, a present or two.
Snowman,, for sure, that was a nice one. Better than the candlestick.

I would just stop talking . Every time she corrects you I would just say 'Oh' and not carry on .

I did this with a friend who constantly interrupted , every time she did it I stopped talking and didn't carry on . I don't see her any more .

Noooo, there are always 4 sundays in advent so depending on when the 25th falls, the number of days varies from year to year.

But I don't think any calendars start before the 1st, do they?

I don't know what to do about your acquaintance. She sounds like a pain. My personality is quite argumentative so I don't really get on very well with people like that, so I try to avoid talking to them.

But I do know about those advent calendars. My sister and I shared the same one for about 10 years. We thought it was nice because it had glitter on it. The pictures inside included: drum, angelic trumpet thing, wrapped present, doll, star, bell, and got more religious the closer it got to Christmas. When chocolate ones were invented, we still had to share, but the change was nice and it was always a surprise what picture was behind it.

They had more than one variety of each of those items though OP .

Plain tree, snow covered tree, tree with lights on etc.

At least the pictures were relevant to Christmas, unlike some in the modern chocolate ones. WHSmith still sell this sort I sometimes buy myself one.

Anyhow, I digress. YANBU, it's rude to continuously correct people on things like this. Also especially annoying when the person correcting you is actually wrong!

Yes, trumpet!

Oh so they just used the same picture but changed the colour or something? I am sure that was true, life could be bleak in the 60's!!
Yes it really is tedious, it's like constant one upmanship and i can't be doing with it.

Sympathies op, I have a mother who behaves in a similar way. It can get very wearing. She really doesn't like it if you correct her!
She even started doing it on facebook. Random posts from her correcting spelling or suchlike.
I have stopped putting up with it.
I have to say I prefer chocolate advent calendars. This year DH has bought a lego one, but given the expense I have told him it will be a one off!

The really bad thing though is that whatever she corrects me on now j would dig my heels in and swear black was white in order to prevent her being right!
I don't usually mind being wrong, or losing an argument, she just brings out the worst in me.

have to interject here....not about your friend, that would annoy the hell out of me, but the old advent calendars. I prefer them to the choccie ones. Mine was covered in glitter and I loved opening the little windows to see th pictures..lol

also completely missing the point, i hate the choccy ones, you are just left with a nasty plastic mess.
when my kids insist on choccy ones I will move to a little drawer thingy.

I'm a professional pedant, married to a professional pedant. Being right is a habit, if that makes sense, and probably an insecurity too. I'm always surprised by people's apparant lack of willingness to google the answer to a question. I have been known to whip out the smartphone at 1am to find out how to spell something. I once had an argument in a Sainsbo's cafe with a woman who was trying to tell me Prince Harry was over 40.

I try so hard not to be a dick about it with non-pedants though, probably unsuccessfully. I will always concede if proved wrong, but a lot of people don't like being challenged in the first place. So wrt the knitting stitches - I'd've googled it and showed her she was wrong.

I guess I'm just trying to show the other point of view here. We've all argued with someone on the internet who's just plain wrong, right? It's like that but irl. Essentially though, if she gets on your tits, you're under no obligation to be around her.

And most advent calendars have 24 doors, because it's a European tradition where Christmas as celebrated in the UK is celebrated on the 24th

I thought about buying a beauty one, but I don't need beauty products ( on any level)
I much prefer the chocolate ones but have enjoyed the nostalgia this morning!

I have (to my shame) an offspring (adult) that likes to be right all the time. I've developed the system now that, when he (yes, it had to be a 'he' didn't it? Where did I go wrong? He's lovely really) corrects me (particularly with a fact I know to be right), I say 'ooh, that's interesting, have I had it wrong all this time? Let's Google it!'

We Google it, only for me to be proved right nine times out of ten. All right, eight times out of ten. But it does shut him up. Can you try that? Sometimes the shame of being wrong stops them doing it.

And there was always a nutcracker soldier behind Door Number 8! And sometimes an inexplicable bowl of fruit.

In my work I was called on to he very accurate in everything. I'm a pedant when it comes to spelling or pronunciation, less so on the internet because of typos and auto correct.
I don't think I do like being challenged. I really don't like it in a social situation - I don't understand why you would do it? I just couldn't be arsed to google something like the stitch issue, partly because I know I'm right and partly because who bloody cares? It just doesn't matter.

More things that were on advent calendars back in the day:

Snowman
Holly
Mistletoe

Nuts/nutcracker, yes, well done! Door 7.

That's just what she does!!

Mistletoe good one. Holly/ ivy not separate, I don't think? And I wondered about a snowflake, but I don't remember any.

AuntDotsie you are not alone. I have been dragged out of a store by my DP as I overheard a sales assistant saying complete rubbish about a TV to a prospective couple.

it just doesn't matter

Not to you, no. To others, yes it does. Just how some people are built, I think.

I dunno, possibly autism, possibly upbringing, possibly pure dickishness. If you don't like it, get rid. You won't be the first or the last.

Logically

Disarm them!
What do you mean they're the same thing? Then she has a moment of feeling smug explaining to you. And then you can come and say, Oh yes, I see what you mean but with moss stitch it's kind of awkward against the grain and I hate that! still a conversation and they get a moment where they have to ACTUALLY listen to what you mean.

24 days definitely (and double doors opening up to the nativity scene on the 24th).

The difficulty I have is that in my mind there is interesting pedantry (i.e. the things I am a total geek about) and then there is boring pedantry (everything else I do not give a damn about).

But here's the thing. I know for a fact that my interesting pedantry is actually only interesting in my head and in fact falls into the boring pedantry category for all except rare and choice specimens of humanity who happen to like looking at early nineteenth century political tracts and novels/pictures of shade plants/owls/philosophy books as much as I do. Therefore, as far as is within my control (and these things do just burst forth at times), I try to exercise some self-restraint.

I think what can be hurtful is when you are having a conversation and it feels quite personal, e.g. you are talking about how much you love knitting because it relaxes you and you're having a hard time at the moment, but you abhor rib and moss stitch from the bottom of your soul. And someone chooses to respond not to the human content of that, but to the fact that you have equated two stitches that they feel are the same thing. It's a bit like saying "Oh my granddad loved Walter Scott's early novels of the 1810s*, and when I see one in a charity shop, it always reminds me of him' to have someone respond (erroneously) 'Walter Scott didn't write any books in the 1810s'.

The couple I mentioned above absolutely excel at this move, to the point that DH and I have named it the socially flat-footed stomp.

*I told you. It just sometimes bursts out.