Pedantic Musings
"Pedantic"
Over the last week, whilst running training seminars for the students at Concordia University, I have realised that no-one in Canada seems to know the word Pedantic. It has been pretty funny, because in each seminar when a certain slide shows on the PPT, everyone asks... What is Pedantic? What is that word? What does it mean?
This really interested me, as I thought it was quite a commonly understood word.
It prompted me to do a scan of people in the office - and NOT ONE CANADIAN KNOWS THIS WORD. I mean it is not like people are not educated or do not have wide vocabularies but they seem to have simply not been introduced to this word.
I took my research further, driving a poll on my msn list. It seemed Canadians still did not know (ASHA!!), and all Aussies, British people, Danish people etc seemed to know it. Actually right now, I have Asha pestering me... What does it mean Mazzy... What does it mean?!!
I am telling her I am writing the long awaited answer on my blog.... RIGHT NOW!
So here it is:
Pedantic (Adjective):
1. Emphasizing minutiae or form in scholarship or teaching; strict; meticulous
OR
2. Marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects
Examples: Professor Jones's lectures were so pedantic that his students sometimes had a tough time understanding the big picture.
Mystery is solved :-)
Over the last week, whilst running training seminars for the students at Concordia University, I have realised that no-one in Canada seems to know the word Pedantic. It has been pretty funny, because in each seminar when a certain slide shows on the PPT, everyone asks... What is Pedantic? What is that word? What does it mean?
This really interested me, as I thought it was quite a commonly understood word.
It prompted me to do a scan of people in the office - and NOT ONE CANADIAN KNOWS THIS WORD. I mean it is not like people are not educated or do not have wide vocabularies but they seem to have simply not been introduced to this word.
I took my research further, driving a poll on my msn list. It seemed Canadians still did not know (ASHA!!), and all Aussies, British people, Danish people etc seemed to know it. Actually right now, I have Asha pestering me... What does it mean Mazzy... What does it mean?!!
I am telling her I am writing the long awaited answer on my blog.... RIGHT NOW!
So here it is:
Pedantic (Adjective):
1. Emphasizing minutiae or form in scholarship or teaching; strict; meticulous
OR
2. Marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects
Examples: Professor Jones's lectures were so pedantic that his students sometimes had a tough time understanding the big picture.
Mystery is solved :-)
5 Comments:
Add Kiwis to your list, I know what pedantic means and I'm pretty sure that Tee does too...
Austria knows aswell.
It is pretty interesting.
And another word thing.
That cleaning stuff you clean kicthens with...
AUSTRALIA: Jif
POLAND: Cif
CANADA: Vim
and it is the same packaging etc... so why does the word change in each country?
What does it mean?
hey,
in Germany the same cleaning stuff is called Viss. It's really weird that you mentioned that, because i just noticed last week that vim is the same thing, when i finally got a chance to watch TV ;-)
Ahhh...pedantic. Still have no idea how to use it in a sentence, but I get the idea. Why not just say unimaginative? focused? I'm sure americans don't know it either, so I'm sure its a function of our adapted North American English. I bet lots of people don't know what a toque is...ask a Canadian, its one of our favorite words.
I can't find Vim or Cif in the US. I've looked for it but settled for Mr Clean instead. The are lots of brands that have the same product but different (sometimes similar) names in different countries. Sometimes its due to cultural bias and translation but often its do to the fact that most of these products were launched at a time when countries didn't work together, Unilever (who makes Vim) has huge issues regarding the cross border co-operation of businesses. Hopefully it doesn't happen as much with new products but I'm sure it does.
What does Toque mean? (Now I am curious)
Thanks Asha for the explanation for the unexplained JIF phenomemon :-)
Hugs Maz
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