Can You Define Pedantic?
A friend’s nine year old daughter began picking a fine bone of contention with her father.
“Stop being pedantic,” he said, immediately provoking a response of, “But I don’t even know what that is!”
Our friend looked over at my husband, who immediately looked at me.
“Cyn? Care to define Pedantic?”
I, of course, shot him a dirty look and pulled up the relevant wikipedia page.
“Did you know that “pedant” has an archaic female form? It’s “pedantess”.”
Then I turned to my friend’s daughter and said, “That is, by definition, pedantic.”
And all the adults snickered.
Three college educated adults and none of us were willing to risk a less than perfect definition for a balky eight year old.
As my friend said to his daughter, “Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree …”