Are pedants often just people who aren't as clever as they think they are?

[Fragmentedbrain]

Left with nowhere to go conversationally besides picking up on typos or in jokes

?

No pedants are people who notice details and think there is value in getting those details correct and preserving subtle distinctions in language.

People who come on specific special interest topics and make disparaging, goady posts about those interested in that topic on the other hand are definitely not as clever as they think they are. HTH.

There's huge value in a certain type of pedantry. The aim of writing is to write what you mean. In order to be clear in your meaning so that the other person understands what you are trying to say, you need to follow the rules of writing that are generally accepted. This should avoid the other person to have to use guesswork.

I am not pedantic regarding very technical rules on punctuation and grammar but I do think the right word in the right context is essential and I also think a comma should be deployed correctly in order not to change the meaning of a sentence.

Having said that, I'm not completely against making up your own words or phrases as long as you do it for entertainment purposes only.

Totally agree re commas. There seems to be a vogue for writing breathless sentences with no punctuation. But punctuation is not a tool designed to torture junior school pupils; its purpose is to clarify the meaning of a sentence.

Also agree re words that will vanish; if we accept disinterested to mean uninterested, we lose a shade of meaning in English.

Why do you assume that people who understand language and grammar assume they are all round clever?

I too value pedantry for this. I am of average intelligence (or perhaps cleverness). I have worked jobs, and been in complex social situations, where accurate communication is crucial. I have seen it go wrong many times. I have inadvertently conveyed the wrong information myself. I have even found people understanding the opposite of what I thought I said. I enjoy pedantry both for mild schadenfreude and to educate myself. I hope to thus improve my language to remove ambiguity. I gained an instinctive sense of correct grammar and clarity from school, but don’t remember many of the actual rules. I frequently look things up. I can see two angles. Correct language conveys correct information. Incorrect language can give an impression of carelessness or ignorance which devalues the message.

'vogue for writing breathless sentences'

I think they're often many sentences strung together, without any idea of sentence construction. It takes an effort sometimes to work out what someone is trying to say.

Yes. Some of that probably comes from not reading books or quality journalism. People who write like that don't seem to reflect that when you are speaking to someone face to face or even on the phone you convey your meaning by more than just your word - facial expression, tone of voice, loudness and body language all play a part, and obviously every so often you pause for breath. In writing you only have your words and punctuation so they need a lot more care and attention.

There are a number of posts on our local pages, from people looking for employment.

’hey i wanna job but i carnt drive so it needs to be local and i dont do office stuff so pm me’ is not going to get a response, in my opinion.

I think us pedants are appalled at the dumbing down of the English language. The astonishing lack of literacy skills. The fact that so much is read online now so people are copying the errors of others, assuming them to be correct. Read a book and I beg you; please don’t use a word if you have no understanding of the meaning. If you don’t read, you can’t write

I’m both delightfully clever and an inveterate pedant - but don’t worry, I don’t need to nitpick to keep a conversation going. Turns out, I’m pretty great at talking too. 😂

Er, shouldn't that be we pedants are appalled in that sentence?

*‘we pedants are appalled’

I see people making all sorts of excuses for poor spelling and grammar. I am a bit of a pedant but didn't learn complex grammar at school so I wouldn't know some of the things Y6 children have to know in SATs (apparently as we don't have this in Scotland).

My dad left school at 14. He wanted to be a doctor but had to work on the family farm. His spelling, grammar and handwriting were all impeccable so standards have slipped appallingly over the years.

It's awfully good fun e-mailing the BBC about the howlers in its news coverage.

And I love my sweary pedant's mug, it makes me smile every time I have a coffee.

So I find pedantry enhances my life.

I have an "Off you fuck" mug I got from two of my colleagues for my 60th birthday as that's what we used to say privately about some of the idiots we had to work with - mostly new teachers who couldn't use correct spelling or grammar to save themselves.

I don’t think you are very self aware if you say “my dear”. 😳

@Fragmentedbrain someone on MN last week introduced me to the Dunning Kruger effect and I think it definitely applies to pedants as much as anyone else!

Oh yes. I flagged an appalling error the other day where someone’s name (the person the piece was about) was spelled three different ways.

Would never have seen that a few years ago, but no subs now y’see.

I first heard of Kruger & Dunning (1999) when it won an Ig Nobel Prize the following year. The effect certainly applies in pedantry. It can be seen in this very thread, where someone corrects a grammatical error and another - hopefully good-naturedly - points out that their correction includes one too.

My favourite is the disputed missing hyphen in “ … a zero tolerance approach to punctuation” (the subtitle of ‘Eats, Shoots & Leaves’).

Speaking of the BBC, here's another cracker from today

"A radar problem used within the UK's air traffic control system caused chaos at airports in the UK and beyond on Wednesday."

1. Wait, what? Problems are used in the air traffic control system?

1. No need for 'within', just 'in' is correct. 'Within' is not a posh word for 'in', it has a specific meaning

The first part should read "A problem with the radar used in the UK's air traffic control system..."

I love a pedant though sadly my grammar is far from infallible.

I only have to look at some a long post on MN with no sentences or paragraphs before skipping past to avoid grammar rage.

The point of grammar is to provide clarity and aid communication.

It’s not about being “clever”.

A cracker indeed but I was more alarmed to hear on the BBC that NATS is a private company!

I would have thought, and assumed, that the control of traffic in our skies was in the hands of the government as the police, army and coast guard are.

Wait til you hear that control of the government itself is the hands of private companies. This is achieved by private control of the movement of finance and of public opinion via ownership and control of the media.

A cracker indeed but I was more alarmed to hear on the BBC that NATS is a private company!

Well, sort of. The government holds 49% of the shares, plus a golden share.

The public-private arrangement came about under Labour, I see.

ETA: the intro to the story seems to have been rewritten now.

Are you projecting a bit, dear?

Or do you actually think that everyone in Pedants' corner constantly corrects others IRL? What an odd assumption to make.

Of course we don’t. But it’s so hard to resist!