Pedantic - Examples and Definition of Pedantic

Definition of Pedantic
Pedantic comes from the French phrase pedant, which means “to train or to act as pedagogue.” A pedantic is someone who's involved with precision, formalism, accuracy, and minute details so as to make an boastful and ostentatious show of learning. He may be a author, a man or woman, feelings, tone, or words. Sigmund Freud defined pedantic in this manner:

“The pedant is he who finds it impossible to examine complaint of himself without right now achieving for his pen and replying to the impact that the accusation is a gross insult to his man or woman.”

A pedant regularly corrects small errors that are not very essential in grand topics and, therefore, may annoy others around him.

Popular Views approximately Pedants
But even they are too pedantic: with prejudiced views, they pursue one-sided aims.
(From Piano and Song, via Friedrich Wieck)
The pedant nonetheless does the motive of schooling incalculable injury. (From Craftsmanship in Teaching, with the aid of William Chandler Bagley)
It is their instinct to flower in spring, of course, however they may be not pedantic about it inside the least. (From About Orchids: A Chat, by means of Frederick Boyle)
Examples of Pedantic Characters in Literature
Example #1: Pale Fire (By Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov)
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov has used Charles Kinbote as a pedant in his novel Pale Fire. Kinbote is a leading individual, living in exile as a literature Professor in a New England university town referred to as New Wye. In fact, he belongs to a country referred to as Zembla.

Kinbote is a pedantic, a disturbed liar who cannot avoid telling lies, which makes this novel interesting. Throughout the novel, Kinbote continues giving clues that he's an exiled king from Zembla. In this case, the readers consider that Kinbote is simply a king from Zembla, in spite of that it's miles equally vital to bear in mind that Zembla has no king. He did this through demonstration of his knowledge of things others do no longer recognize about.

Example #2: The Big Bang Theory (By Bill Prady and Chuck Lorre)
Bill Prady and Chuck Lorre’s sitcom consists of a pedantic individual, Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, who is a theoretical physicist. Dr. Sheldon Cooper is idiosyncratic and obsessed, being possessed with severe narcissism and extensive preferred knowledge. Other characteristics of his personality include inflated ego, prodigy, social ineptitude, and his inability to express feelings to people, which show him as a normal pedantic character.

Example #3: The Great Gatsby (By F. Scott Fitzgerald)
“Civilization’s going to pieces … I’ve gotten to be a horrible pessimist approximately things. Have you examine ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by means of this guy Goddard? … Well, it’s a excellent book, and anybody ought to study it. The concept is if we don’t appearance out the white race can be — will be fully submerged. It’s all medical stuff; it’s been proved … I recognize I’m now not very popular. I don’t give large parties. I assume you’ve got to make your house into a pigsty which will have any friends – in the current global.”

In this paragraph, Tom Buchanan is making an attempt to look like a learned character however he winds up searching foolish. The final line is a pedantic, as Tom is bringing up recognition and parties of Gatsby as a evidence of contemporary global disintegration.

Example #4: Cherry Orchard (By Anton Chekhov)
Trofimov is an intelligent man or woman but impassioned, and immature too. Therefore, Chekhov calls him an “Eternal Student.” He is unforgiving and judgmental, as Lubov places blame on his kids saying:

“You boldly look forward, isn’t it due to the fact you can not foresee or expect anything horrible, because thus far lifestyles has been hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than we are, however think only, be just a little magnanimous, and feature mercy on me.”

Here he thinks that he's an highbrow and a modern preoccupied with plans, but being ostentatious, lacking real international enjoy and displaying traits of a pedantic guy.

Function of Pedantic
Writers use a pedantic character to teach something in a complicated manner, or to educate with excessive demonstration of knowledge. Another reason of writers in using pedantry is to display their multilingual competencies through the usage of immoderate knowledge. Though the term pedantic refers to displaying a experience of knowledge, that's its positive side, it also tells approximately the narrow-mindedness of a person or a writer who attempts to insist on adhering to arbitrary regulations and principles, because regularly such rules are pointless.