{{Short description|Excessive concern with unimportant details}} {{Redirect-distinguish|Pedant|Pendant}}{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}}[[File:The Pedant by Thomas Rowlandson.jpg|thumb|240px|''The Pedant'' by caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson]] '''Pedantry''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|p|ɛ|d|.|ə|n|.|t|ɹ|i}} {{Respell|PED|ən|tree}}) is an excessive concern with formalism, minor details, and rules that are not important.<ref>{{Cite web |title=pedantry |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pedantry |access-date=2024-07-20 |website=Cambridge Dictionary}}</ref><ref name="oed">{{Cite OED|pedantry|1037489363}}</ref>
== Etymology == Pedantry is the adjective form of the 1580s English word ''pedant'', which meant a male schoolteacher at the time.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Word of the Day: Pedantic |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/pedantic-2009-11-23 |access-date=2024-12-22 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref> The word pedant originated from the French word for "schoolmaster", {{lang|fr|pédant}}, in the 1560s, or from the Italian word for "teacher, schoolmaster", {{lang|it|pedante}}.<ref>{{cite book |chapter= s.v. pedant |title= The Oxford English Dictionary: Being a Corrected Re-Issue of with An Introduction, Supplement and Bibliography of a New English Dictionary on Historical Principles |volume= 7 O-POY |year= 1933 |place= Oxford |publisher= Clarendon Press |url= https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99996/page/n5/mode/2up |page= [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99996/page/n891/mode/2up 605] |via= Internet Archive |accessdate= 4 November 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia| encyclopedia=Merriam Webster Dictionary |title=pedant |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pedant |access-date=4 November 2025| date= 2003 |edition = 11th |publisher=}}</ref> Both of these words are likely an alteration of Late Latin word {{lang|la|paedagogantes}}. The pejorative meaning of a "person who trumpets minor points of learning... or lays undue stress on exact knowledge of details" comes from the 1590s.<ref>{{Cite web |title=pedantic {{pipe}} Etymology of pedantic by etymonline |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/pedantic |access-date=2024-12-22 |website=www.etymonline.com |language=en}}</ref> In ancient Greece, a paedagogus was a slave entrusted with teaching young Roman boys.
== Analysis == {{Refactor}}
Notably, the distinction between pedantry and perfectionism is that pedantry typically focuses on highlighting trivial, unimportant details of others and is associated with the desire for attention or superiority, whereas perfectionism typically focuses on oneself and the desire of success and achievement.{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}}{{POV statement|date=April 2026}} Therefore, pedantry is typically associated with annoyance and being ill-mannered, whereas perfectionism is associated more positively.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}{{POV statement|date=April 2026}} Ultimately, pedantry could be viewed as an attempt to show superiority by appearing more intelligent, through tasks as simple as correcting a peer's grammar online.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Steele |first=David |date=2017-05-30 |title=Why do pedants pedant? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2017/may/30/why-do-pedants-pedant |access-date=2024-12-22 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>{{Medical citation needed|date=April 2026}}{{POV statement|date=April 2026}} In modern times, pedantry is also often used as an intentional tactic or unintentional act which distracts from larger issues by focusing on minor details instead.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}{{POV statement|date=April 2026}} For instance, a pedant might dismiss or invalidate a comprehensive, logical argument due to a few minor grammatical errors.{{Original research inline|date=April 2026}}{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}}{{POV statement|date=April 2026}}
''Fowler's Concise Dictionary of Modern English'' (1926) recognised that the term pedantry was "relative" and subjective, stating "my pedantry is your scholarship, his reasonable accuracy, her irreducible minimum of education, and someone else's ignorance".<ref>{{Cite book |title=Fowler's Concise Dictionary of Modern English |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780191800979 |editor-last=Butterfield |editor-first=Jeremy |edition=3rd |via=Oxford Reference}}</ref>
== See also ==
* Perfectionism (psychology) * Anti-intellectualism
== References == {{reflist|2}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:Human behavior Category:Pejorative terms for people Category:Psychological concepts
== External links == {{wikt|pedantry}}