Language! (words change meaning)

[pmcgee]

Turning a (memory) Loss into a Win!

Just now I couldn't remember the word for "picky about details" ... I had the "P" ... I wanted "Pedantic" ...

so ... harder than it should have been ... I stumbled on a rolling brawl amongst linguaphiles.


http://english.stackexchange.com/que...mall-details-o


Plus very good set of results: (quoting)


A pedantic person gives too much attention to formal rules or small details.
A meticulous person is very careful and pays great attention to every detail.
A fastidious person gives too much attention to small details and wants everything to be correct and perfect.

Persnickety!

a : fussy about small details
Whoa, thats a good find. – M.A
As soon as I read your question title, it hit me in the head. – cornbread ninja
Persnickety is just a quaint US colloquialism of the original pernickety. – FumbleFingers
@FumbleFingers You make it seem that pernickety isn’t colloquial, but it is. And p’ick’y is just the quaint polycontraction of either of them. – tchrist




@tchrist: At the risk of seeming persnickety/pernickety/picky myself, I will simply point out that my newly-acquired OED lists persnickety as "U.S. colloq.", and says it derives from pernickety. The entry for the latter does not include the epithet "colloq." OED doesn't have an entry for "p'ick'y", which I've never seen before, and would make no sense in speech - but the entry for "picky" defines this as "Fastidious, finicky, ‘choosey’" - obviously from "to pick/choose/select". – FumbleFingers


nitpicker if you want the connotation of overly perfectionist
The closest word I can think of is punctilious adjective - showing great attention to detail or correct behavior
If you're looking for a noun, how about a fussbudget?
Since you specifically ask for a noun rather than an adjective, I have these: fusspot, pedant, perfectionist and stickler.

I'd like to propose pedant. It's a person who is overly concerned with formal rules, excessively concerned with formalism and precision.
The adjective is pedantic.
Yes, that covers the 'rules abiding' thing. – M.A

The word pedant reminds me of that albatross charm pendant which my grade school English teacher always had danging from her neck as we read “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. And pedantry sound like the act of inappropriately hanging around with children, just as pedagogy is inappropriately oggling children. Pedology is studying the ground that children walk or ride bikes on. And palaeopedology is studying old farts. – tchrist

You need to think about this word a little less – M.A



I haven't seen someone offer the word anal (or anal-retentive):
The term anal-retentive (also anally retentive), commonly abbreviated to anal, is used conversationally to describe a person who pays such attention to detail that the obsession becomes an annoyance to others, potentially to the detriment of the anal-retentive person.

[artme]

Know all about that Paul.

SWMBO is a pernickety, nit-picking, pedantic fusspot !!


On the subject of fairness and unfairness.

I suppose it is pretty logical to use the term unfairness in the way the boatbuilders do.
If you take fair to be right or true then unfairness is the same thing not right or true, and
this applies to to the boatbuilding situation with regard to the rightness or trueness of
shape, line, measurement etc.

The spell checker on this machine doesn't like trueness.!!!

[pmcgee]

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30396...-h/30396-h.htm

CLEVER STATESMEN.


However great talents may command the admiration of the world, they do not generally best fit a man for the discharge of social duties. Swift remarks that "Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. This I once said to my Lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe, that the clerk in his office used a sort of ivory knife, with a blunt edge, to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only by requiring a steady hand; whereas, if he should make one of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease, and disfigure the paper."

[artme]

Just so Mr.Swift!! ( One of the greatest political satirists ever! )

I remember a certain college of Advanced Education appointment where an eminent
Professor in his field was appointed to the top Job. Made a complete mess of it!! Not
because he was stupid but because of the fact that he was not trained in administration
and was too prone to bright but unworkable ideas. Unworkable because of budgetary
and regulatory constraints.

[pmcgee]

New word for today ... mordant.

adjective
1.
(especially of humour) having or showing a sharp or critical quality; biting.
"a mordant sense of humour"

noun
1.
a substance, typically an inorganic oxide, that combines with a dye or stain and thereby fixes it in a material.
an adhesive compound for fixing gold leaf.
2.
a corrosive liquid used to etch the lines on a printing plate.

verb
1.
impregnate or treat (a fabric) with a mordant.



"Men acting gregariously are always in extremes; as they are one moment capable of higher courage, so they are liable, the next, to baser depression, and it is often a matter of chance whether numbers shall multiply confidence or discouragement. Nor does deception lead more surely to distrust of men, than self-deception to suspicion of principles. The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.

Enthusiasm is good material for the orator, but the statesman needs something more durable to work in,--must be able to rely on the deliberate reason and consequent firmness of the people, without which that presence of mind, no less essential in times of moral than of material peril, will be wanting at the critical moment."

"Abraham Licoln" - James Russell Lowell