A pedant is a person who is excessively concerned with formalism, accuracy, and precision, or one who makes an and arrogant show of learning.
Personality
Pedantry is related to personality. One study found that extroverts were more tolerant of typing mistakes than introverts.
Etymology
The English language word pedant comes from the Frenchpédant or its older mid-15th century Italian source pedante, 'teacher, schoolmaster'. The origin of the Italian pedante is uncertain, but several dictionaries suggest that it was contracted from the medieval Latinpædagogans,present participle of pædagogare, 'to act as pedagogue, to teach' . The Latin word is derived from Greek παιδαγωγός, paidagōgós, παιδ- 'child' + ἀγειν 'to lead', which originally referred to a slave who escorted children to and from school but later meant "a source of instruction or guidance".
Connotation
The term in English is typically used with a negative connotation to refer to someone who is over-concerned with and whose tone is :wikt:condescension|condescending. Thomas Nashe wrote in Have with you to Saffron-walden, page 43: "O, tis a precious apothegmaticall Pedant, who will finde matter inough to dilate a whole daye of the first inuention of Fy, fa, fum". However, when the word was first used by Shakespeare in The Taming of the Shrew, it simply meant "teacher".
Medical conditions
is in part characterized by a form of pedantry that is excessively concerned with the correct following of rules, procedures, and practices. Sometimes the rules that OCPD sufferers obsessively follow are of their own devising, or are corruptions or reinterpretations of the letter of actual rules. Pedantry can also be an indication of specific developmental disorders. In particular, people with Asperger syndrome often have behaviour characterized by pedantic speech.
Quotations
"A Man who has been brought up among Books, and is able to talk of nothing else, is what we call a Pedant. But, methinks, we should enlarge the Title, and give it to every one that does not know how to think out of his Profession and particular way of Life." ―Joseph Addison, Spectator
"Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgements of one another." ―Desiderius Erasmus
"The pedant is he who finds it impossible to read criticism of himself without immediately reaching for his pen and replying to the effect that the accusation is a gross insult to his person. He is, in effect, a man unable to laugh at himself." ―Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id
"The term, then, is obviously a relative one: my pedantry is your scholarship, his reasonable accuracy, her irreducible minimum of education and someone else’s ignorance."―H. W. Fowler, Modern English Usage
"Pedantic, I?" ―Alexei Sayle
"Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. It wastes your time and annoys the pedant." ―Lois McMaster Bujold
"If you're the kind of person who insists on this or that 'correct' use... abandon your pedantry, as I did mine. Dive into the open flowing waters and leave the stagnant canals be... Above all, let there be pleasure!" ―Stephen Fry
"Ben is a crossword-doer, a dictionary-lover, a pedant." ―Julian Barnes
