The pedant’s nemesis is the intellectual peasant. In our long running war with the dullards of this world, we pedants often have to resort to extreme measures when faced with the ill-informed machinations of these characters who lower themselves to estimations and good enough. Nothing gets on our nerves more than the words approximate or roughly. In the first of a series of posts, we at Pedants’ Corner will outline the pedagogical weapons with which we wage war against these purveyors of best efforts.
The first item in our arsenal is an old friend, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica as edited by Hugh Chisholm. The library at Schloss Graham contains the full 29 volumes in all their leather-bound glory. Many a peasant has been reeducated by a reference to an entry in the encyclopedia. Here at Pedants’ Corner our favorite volume is Volume 21 (Payn, James-Polka). But why Volume 21 we hear you ask? The answer is contained at the bottom of Page 36.
Not to be pedantic, but shouldn’t the third sentence read:
“Nothing gets on our nerves more THAN the words approximate or roughly.”?
Intellectual Peasant 1, Pedants 0
Feh, pedantry of typos is contemptible.
What you haven’t realised Intellectual Peasant is that by bringing a typo to our attention you are joining our great pedantic crusade…
…and we’ve corrected the typo.
But to be fair, we will highlight any mistakes that our readers bring our attention, and that we agree with, in blue.
I regret to inform you that I am not, in fact, joining your “great” pedantic crusade.
I am an intellectual peasant fighting the pedant oppressors.