What's the difference between pedantic and picky?

Pedantic


Definition:

  • (a.) Alt. of Pedantical

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "Let me be one of 1,057 well-read pedants to let you know that Giovani dos Santos, 'the Mexican Ronaldinho' (last week's O Fiverão ) actually plays for Villarreal and not Málaga.
  • (2) 7.53pm BST Pedant repellant Style guide: GEORGE: What is Holland?
  • (3) He said localness remained key to small stations' success, but added that regulation should move away from "outdated" and "pedantic" box-ticking to focus on output rather than input.
  • (4) The enigmatic patience of the sentences, the pedantic syntax, the peculiar antiquity of the diction, the strange recessed distance of the writing, in which everything seems milky and sub-aqueous, just beyond reach – all of this gives Sebald his particular flavour, so that sometimes it seems that we are reading not a particular writer but an emanation of literature.
  • (5) For pedants and non-pedants it’s the ultimate horror.
  • (6) "He found for Max Mosley because he had not engaged in a 'sick Nazi orgy' as the News of the World claimed, though for the life of me that seems an almost surreally pedantic logic as some of the participants were dressed in military-style uniform," Dacre added.
  • (7) Although some find the distinction pedantic, it is useful to reserve the term hypoglycaemia for this biochemical state, and neuroglycopenia for the clinical syndrome that results.
  • (8) They thought he was cool, smart without being pedantic, and seemed to have his act together.
  • (9) The Finns were pretty cool; the Swedes, pedantic but resigned; the Danes did get a little fighty; the Icelanders were irritated not to have been given more attention; but the Norwegians, boy, they were not happy.
  • (10) Photograph: Alamy If you aren’t put off by a high density of boutique moustaches and pedantic coffee connoisseurs, Stoneybatter is a worthwhile deviation from Temple Bar, Grafton Street and the other well-trodden tourist zones.
  • (11) 6.40pm BST An early email from Zachary Gomperts-Mitchelson "Now, I know you said arguably, and trying, admittedly not that hard, to avoid sounding like an insufferable pedant, but surly the biggest game in Dortmund's history has got to be the Champions League final against Juventus that they won in 1996?"
  • (12) 9 None sense A sure sign of a pedant is that, under the impression that none is an abbreviation of not one, they will insist on saying things like "none of them has turned up".
  • (13) "Let me completely fail to avoid sounding like an insufferable pedant by saying that Zachary Gomperts-Mitchelson succintly said what we were all thinking, except that Dortmund won the Champions' League in 1997, not 1996," he writes.
  • (14) Furthermore, the ministerial code is pedantically explicit about the minister's total accountability for all the special adviser's actions.
  • (15) 28 mins: Look at the pedantic dolts I have to deal with: "So which bit of '4 mins ... 7mins ... 10 mins' is 'minute-by-minute' commentary, exactly?"
  • (16) There are visitors, presents, pedantic calls to NHS Direct – fatherhood's getting started!
  • (17) The magistrate, who paid “pedantic” and “meticulous” attention to detail, had definitely ordered weekend-only access, Treverton said.
  • (18) What made their embarrassment so irresistible to the more pedantic of their fellow engineers, who rushed in to make judgments about what had happened, was that they seemed to have brought it on themselves.
  • (19) The particle "up" is an intransitive preposition and does not require an object, so even the most pedantic of pedants would have no objection to a phrase like "This is pedantry with which I will not put up."
  • (20) When I’ve said this before on Twitter, people get into a pedantic spin about whether or not Jews are a race or a religion, but that’s irrelevant: they are considered a race by racists.

Picky


Definition:

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Pickiness and concern with weight were more common in girls than in boys, and the prevalence of pickiness declined with age.
  • (2) Writing in the Daily Telegraph in December, Johnson, then mayor of London, said the west could not afford to be picky in its choice of allies since Isis in Syria could not be defeated without terrestrial forces.
  • (3) When searching for gay parenting in kids' movies, I found the short film Family Restaurant , about a picky toothpick dispenser who thinks ketchup bottles shouldn't be allowed to date; he changes his tune after learning a valuable lesson from a little boy with two dads.
  • (4) And being ultra picky, the nicely charred, coarsely ground patty (of prime Northern Irish beef) could do with a shade more seasoning, too.
  • (5) Unsurprisingly, the uproar forced the company to backtrack within 48 hours and promise even newer firmware that wouldn’t be so picky.
  • (6) While it seems we have a natural inclination to love ice cream, most of us are not too picky about how we take our fix.
  • (7) With all this going on, never mind global warming, we appear to be entering an era of hyper-picky sexual freeze.
  • (8) There, at a remove, he’s picky about the stuff he’s offered.
  • (9) If we are going to be picky and try to find one lingering complaint about the way Arsenal handed Manchester United this sobering reality check, it can be only that Arsène Wenger’s team should remind us of their brilliance more often.
  • (10) Miura concedes that she and her boyfriend are "picky" about food.
  • (11) Some people are very particular about the characteristics they want their child to have, "but normally by the time people have made that big emotional jump, they're not going to be picky about hair colour.
  • (12) It would, in any case, suit Boris (whose second mayoral term runs until May, 2016) if the contest to succeed Cameron were held later; and (to be really picky) with the Tories still in power.
  • (13) When I meet Gensler and Venus, they assure me that discussions are going well with the Port of London Authority , which manages the river and is notoriously picky about intrusions on it.
  • (14) Even after that terrible date, my friends and family told me I was being too picky, and that unless I relaxed my standards, I'd never get married.
  • (15) Show me someone who likes their meat overcooked and I will show you a picky eater, someone who regards meal times as a set of challenges and insults to be negotiated, like oil-slicked chicanes on a race track.
  • (16) Call me picky, but a close-up of something slicing fat like a Sunday roast is quite off-putting.
  • (17) All in all we can’t be too picky – it was a good all-round performance.
  • (18) "I have to take any job I can get, because [while] they serve meals here, he is picky about what he eats.
  • (19) Pedro Martinez is on the TBS pregame show here in the US and says the Cardinals have to be careful, because the Dodgers are going to be "very picky" if they hit him or come close to hitting the shortstop.
  • (20) As qualifying group winners, Northern Ireland have earned the right to be picky.