Friday 23 March 2012

Pedant's Day of Prayer

One in ten people in this country suffer from Pedantry.

The urge to constantly analyse other peoples' English, to helpfully offer to advize them on their error's. It should be helpful to make people's communications less unambiguous. But in practise, they can be treated like leopards - social Marias.

Something as simple as a trip down to London can be, quite literally, a nightmare. Imagine looking at a sign saying "Kings Cross" as you pull in from Milton Keynes, London Luton Airport or Colchester. Would you want to try and do your Christmas shopping when your unable to bring yourself to enter Hamleys, Selfridges or Harrods?

Indeed, even a walk through you're local small town can brake a pedants heart - quite literally. They can get addicted to the marker pens they use to correct the sign's outside Greengrocer's. And they can spend so long arguing with market stallholder's that they can end up with no shopping, running the risk of having to eat out at restaurant's such as Pizza Hut, where they'll point out that the building is actually quite well-built. They will often get thrown out of buffet restaurant's for pointing out that "all you can eat" is not time-bounded, so they should be allowed to live there. Or sending the coffee mug's and cola glasses' back and demanding refund's, on the grounds they have bottom's.

Pedant's are easily overlooked, just because there is less of them than sufferer's from other psychological condition's. But they would argue their no different to me or you. They just have this illness' to put up with. Its hard, but they would say, between you and I, that they'd rather have Pedantry than go through life accepting its inaccuracies'.

So from 10 to 4 today we'll be having our Full Day of Prayer for Pedant's. Hopefully you'll be with us for the whole program. But if not, it's something you can literally dip in and out of. 

4 comments :

  1. Some guerilla pedants use stickers. I've written about it here http://little-bits.paulmorriss.com/2010/09/guerilla-pedants.html.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For guerrilla stickering (albeit not in the cause of pedantry) it's hard to beat this. http://flic.kr/p/rRiQa

      Delete
  2. as a confirmed anti-pedant I choose to take to the hills instead....

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can't even read this without getting all worked up inside. Just exactly how sad am I? Prayer for this pedant appreciated.

    ReplyDelete

Drop a thoughtful pebble in the comments bowl