Why do pedants pedant? | Dave Steele

Some people just love pointing out mistakes and errors made by others. Why? What do they get from it?

Pedants are literally everywhere. Although, there's still space for oxygen and rabbits and scented candles. Announcing themselves with a catchphrase that could be from a Richard Curtis film about rustic water sources and being charmingly upper-class and awkward (Well, actually"), pedants can frequently be seen correcting grammar, factoids and social etiquette at auspicious occasions, before disappearing in a puff of nothing back to wherever it was they came from. It's enough to make you nauseous.

Sigmund Freud stated that pedants are men who are unable to laugh at themselves. I would point out that female pedants exist, but he'd probably say I was being anal. Or maybe genital. Between you and I, I can never remember the developmental stages. Irregardless, pedants are individuals who make excessive displays of their own knowledge based on formal rules and overly precise details with an enormity that disregards common sense. Pedantry represents a behaviour and as such can potentially be explained through psychology/neuroscience/scientific just-so stories.