pedantics

English

Etymology

From pedantic +‎ -ics.

Noun

pedantics (plural or uncountable)

1. Pedantic details.
   • 1976, Fish and Wildlife Miscellaneous—Part 4: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation and the Environment of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, page 126:

     I deal with this type of thing every day and while I do not go into pedantics we must have scientific evidence gathered in each area to put the problem into perspective.

   • 1983, Girma Negash, Language and Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Revolutionary Rhetoric of Regime Leaders and Power Contenders in Ethiopia Between 1974 and 1977, pages 220–221:

     In Addis Zemen, in particular, the old hortatory pedantics of the need for progress, economic development and bureaucratic efficiency continued even after the change of regime. The only aspect of the pedantics that changed was the type of precedents mentioned in terms of development problems and their solutions.

   • 1992, College Student Journal, page 86:

     He highlights the stylistic conceits and ambiguity that often turn quite ordinary statements into ponderous pedantics.

   • 1997 May 26, Parliamentary Debates: House of Representatives, page 4001:

     What we need to do here is not so much address the politics and the pedantics but make sure that—not just in this industry but also in other industries—the protocols put in place to protect our industries are in fact effective.

   • 2015, Lucy A. Snyder, While the Black Stars Burn, Raw Dog Screaming Press:

     “This isn’t the time to argue pedantics, Ace, come. Time and tide melt the snowman and all that.”

2. Pedantry; the quality of being pedantic.
   • 1969, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), […] the Government Printer of the Commonwealth of Australia, page 483:

     It would be far better if the expression of the view of the Senate were arrived at without the necessity for pedantics—although I am not suggesting that pedantics are involved in this case—or the tagging on of things.

   • 1975, Agricultural Research and Development, Special Oversight Hearings, Part II: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Science, Research and Technology and the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Scientific Planning and Analysis of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress, First Session, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, published 1976, page 584:

     It has to be imaginative, but at the same time we have to do a certain amount of pedantics. What I might call pedantic research to answer the questions that our first witness has to have each year.

   • 1955, Donald Belden Muir, John Dryden's Albion and Albanius and King Arthur: An Analysis of Operatic Form, page 91:

     The lack of pretension, mentioned above, is present in the music, also. Pomposity and pedantics are absent from this score.

   • 1983, David James Duncan, The River Why, Sierra Club Books, page 223:

     I considered launching a lecture in support of the thesis that helmets are not always an effective antidote to slingshots (witness Goliath), but it seemed likely that pedantics would only attract fire to my own unhelmeted skull; and my desire to resort to pedantics constituted a final proof: I was no hippie.

   • 1989, Scheme and the Art of Programming, The MIT Press, →ISBN, page 293:

     Scheme is a wonderful thing. Complex procedural ideas / Are expressed via simple strings. Its clear semantics, and lack of pedantics, / Help make programs run, run, RUN!

   • 2004, Doreen J. McBarnet, Crime, Compliance and Control (Collected Essays in Law), Dartmouth Publishing/Ashgate Publishing, →ISBN, page 103:

     Procedural pedantics are not just emergency measures: they are what make a trial a trial, and the result is that the accused in the magistrates’ courts is not just prevented from challenging the court but is routinely prevented from participating effectively in his own trial.

   • 2005, Criminal Procedure: Adjudication and Right to Counsel, Aspen Publishers, page 228:

     This is not only pedantics, I quote Corinthian, Chapter 13, 8th Verse.

   • 2012, Bob Spencer, “The Body Farm”, in Sanity and Solitude: Cogent Ramblings of a Lone Aesthetic, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 136:

     Around 1590 he used it in a hyphenated poem called ‘self-love’. I can’t seem to find it in Chaucer’s works although I did find ‘bagpipe’ and ‘laxative’ in the Canterbury Tales which was useful and also ‘mediation’ which was very useful. I tried the earlier works by Dante but still no luck. I still don’t know when ‘self’ appeared yet now it seems ubiquitous, especially in its hyphenated form, to explain almost anything anyone wants to explain. It’s probably a bit like the word ‘god’ something which doesn’t exist or have a singularity of meaning. Now I’m not usually Mister Picky (pedantics is a crime) I just wanted to clarify where this ‘self’ thing is supposed to actually exist and I can’t, so it doesn’t. It’s just a word which precedes a hyphen, after which you can use any other word you want.

   • 2016, Thomas Corfield, The Alchemists Of Vra, Panda Books Australia, →ISBN:

     “Boundless Extensible Subterfuge,” Sinson-Rascalian said, “is brilliant and subtle. It is invisible and inevitable. It has the power to topple governments and yet leaves no trace of doing so. It can invert entire worlds and yet appear as no more than morning mist. It is boundless. It is extensible—” “What does that even mean?” Oscar cried. “—and it is the most elegant form of subterfuge.” “Right—stop— your pedantics are seriously getting in the way of specifics.”

   • 2018, Dawn Sister, A Springful of Winters (Seasons of Love Anthology), Beaten Track Publishing, →ISBN, page 104:

     Stephan is still smiling, and I can’t tell if this is because he’s happy, or amused, but at least he doesn’t look annoyed or frustrated because of my pedantics over timing.