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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder if the nit-picking pedants realise just how idiotic they sound?

84 replies

LoverOfCake · 31/10/2017 18:50

MN has always had an element of pedantry over e.g. Grammar for instance, but these days it's gone beyond ridiculous to picking at people's behaviours etc and singling them out for the smallest thing. It could look like this:

Poster posts "I'm really worried about us all as a family. My children have serious behavioural issues, my daughter has been through a series of bad relationships, my eight year old told me to fuck off the other day, my husband thinks the answer to us rowing is using his fists, and he's also shagging one of the school mums. I'm currently locked in the bathroom after the latest row between us, my face is bleeding and I have a black eye. I need to go to the shops to buy food for dinner but I'm scared what will happen to me if I come out. So at the moment the kids have eaten the last of the haribo in the cupboard. Please help me mn." but someone will then respond "I can't believe you let your children eat haribo. Do you know how unhealthy they are?"

That is an extreme but isn't in comparison to some of the pedantry seen on here of late. Do these people who feel the need to read an entire thread and pick at one minor detail really think it makes them look good and superior? Because it really doesn't, quite the opposite actually.

OP posts:
JaneJeffer · 01/11/2017 12:14

My favourite thing is when someone corrects someone else but makes a spelling error in their own post.

I love the Haribo ads Grin

JaneJeffer · 01/11/2017 12:15

Oh and just say fanny, saves any confusion.

TieGrr · 01/11/2017 12:19

It's irritating when threads get derailed by pedantry but on the flip side, I do find that sometimes what seems like a tiny little detail in the opening post turns out to be a much more serious issue. Usually involving a DP/DH.

PortiaCastis · 01/11/2017 12:19

The internet is full of perfect people apparently, shame there are none in real life.

scampimom · 01/11/2017 12:25

Being a pedant is amazing. Not only does it let everyone know that I am essentially superior in every way (except in common sense and kindness but you can't get a degree in those so they don't count), but it also proves to my id that I am NOT a sad lonely tosspot groping for meaning in a Scrabble bag/anonymous internet* forum.

  • Note how I spell [internet] with a lower-case [i]. This is because although in older editions of British English dictionaries the word is generally entered as [Internet], with linguistic evolution the term has become so oh god I've bored myself
milliemolliemou · 01/11/2017 12:26

How do you comfort a pedant?

There, they're, their.

PortiaCastis · 01/11/2017 12:26
Grin
RosaRosaRose · 01/11/2017 18:49

milliemolliemou Arf arf Grin

StepAwayFromGoogle · 01/11/2017 20:18

I am a self-confessed grammar and spelling pedant but I wouldn't dream of going onto a post just to correct someone. That's just mean and unnecessary.

There are a small subset of spiteful, goady, unpleasant people on MN, but they are a minority. They must have really sad and miserable lives to clearly take so much pleasure in being unkind to other people. Best to ignore people like that methinks x

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