THE PEDANTIC HIERARCHY The following comprises a classification system against which aspiring pedants may assess themselves. 1. Pre-Pedant Doesnt like its being confused with its. That is the only prejudice he has so far mastered. 2. Basic Pedant Is aware of, and maddened by, confusion between flaunt and flout, rebut and refute, disinterested and uninterested. Knows that criteria and media are often used wrongly, but is not sure why. Pet hate: confusion between alternate and alternative. 3. Flyweight Pedant Knows that media and criteria are plural only, but tends to use data as singular. Insists that one graffiti is a graffito. Is constantly worried by the pronunciation of pronunciation. Pet hate: confusion between fewer and less. 4. Lower-Middle Pedant Is usually maddened by misuse of the apostrophe. There is nothing he hates more than cafes called Joes Eats though as the owner of Joes Eats would never answer a letter, he prefers to write to newspapers protesting that they printed Terry Venables team instead of the correct Terry Venabless team. Insists that data should be plural only but has not yet tumbled to incunabula. Pet hate: the use of hopefully, even when correct (or, if Scottish, the misuse of the word Scotch). 5. Demi-Semi-Pedant Insists that one strand of spaghetti is a spaghetto and that more than one solo are soli. Aggravated when aggravate is used to mean irritate. Pet hate: incunabula used as a singular, though he does not worry about agenda when so used. 6. Light-Heavy Pedant It is at this level that irritation over misuse of titles and forms of address starts creeping in. Is also maddened by menus that write magret de canard as maigret de canard. If Scots, always refers to our Queen as Elizabeth I, and, if Irish, hates whisky being spelt without an e. Thinks that one bit of confetti is a confetto. Pet hate: seeing hoi polloi referred to tautologically as the hoi polloi. 7. Upper-Middle Pedant This is a man with strong worries about Latin and Greek derivations, though he will write at length about how many noughts there are in a billion. Several cellos are probably celli, and Capri is always stressed on the first syllable. Pet hate: people who think hoi polloi means the few, the elite. 8. Heavyweight Pedant Fury is aroused at this level by new words which combine Greek and Latin elements indiscriminately, like mega-terror or minerology. Happiness is caused if Himalayas is stressed on the second syllable and if decimate is used to mean reduce by a tenth. This pedant likes to go into a bar and order a small, dry Martino, and hates to disturb the statum quo. Pet hate: people saying a hotel, and misuse of ilk 9. Super Pedant At this rarified level, the pedant would probably be happier speaking Latin - he certainly gets upset by the wrong pronunciation of it. Says averse from, not averse to, because averse means turned away. Pronounces Bahrain in the Arab style, with a Scots ch somewhere in the middle. Suspects that Robert McCrum is the singular of Robert McCra. Pet hate: everything. 10. Grandmaster Pedant Very few reach this stage; most candidates have a heart attack at Level 9. The grandmaster pedant is tolerant of almost every faux pas, though he is faintly irked by ill-informed speculation over the origins of Basque. He would basically rather be speaking Sanskrit than anything, and can pronounce Abu Dhabi correctly. He never writes to newspapers with corrections, only to the editors of famous dictionaries. Pet hate: pedantry.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 21:49:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015