What's the difference between pedantic and specific?

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  • (3) He said localness remained key to small stations' success, but added that regulation should move away from "outdated" and "pedantic" box-ticking to focus on output rather than input.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.

Specific


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to a species; characterizing or constituting a species; possessing the peculiar property or properties of a thing which constitute its species, and distinguish it from other things; as, the specific form of an animal or a plant; the specific qualities of a drug; the specific distinction between virtue and vice.
  • (a.) Specifying; definite, or making definite; limited; precise; discriminating; as, a specific statement.
  • (a.) Exerting a peculiar influence over any part of the body; preventing or curing disease by a peculiar adaption, and not on general principles; as, quinine is a specific medicine in cases of malaria.
  • (n.) A specific remedy. See Specific, a., 3.
  • (a.) Anything having peculiar adaption to the purpose to which it is applied.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Comparison of the S100 alpha-binding protein profiles in fast- and slow-twitch fibers of various species revealed few, if any, species- or fiber type-specific S100 binding proteins.
  • (2) Unfortunately, due to confidentiality clauses that have been imposed on us by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, we are unable to provide our full names and … titles … However, we believe the evidence that will be submitted will validate the statements that we are making in this submission.” The submission detailed specific allegations – including names and dates – of sexual abuse of child detainees, violence and bullying of children, suicide attempts by children and medical neglect.
  • (3) Anti-Leu 7 could not be considered as a specific marker for oligodendroglioma.
  • (4) Five probes of high specificity to individual chromosomes (chromosomes 3, 11, 17, 18 and X) were hybridized in situ to metaphase chromosomes of different individuals.
  • (5) The nuclear origin of the Ha antigen was confirmed by the speckled nuclear immunofluorescence staining pattern given by purified antibody to Ha obtained from a specific immune precipitate.
  • (6) The role of Ca2+ in cell agglutination may be either to activate the cell-surface dextran receptor or to form specific intercellular Ca2+ bridges.
  • (7) The Cole-Moore effect, which was found here only under a specific set of conditions, thus may be a special case rather than the general property of the membrane.
  • (8) Although solely nociresponsive neurons are clearly likely to fill a role in the processing and signalling of pain in the conscious central nervous system, the way in which such useful specificity could be conveyed by multireceptive neurons is difficult to appreciate.
  • (9) On the other hand, after exposure to BrdUrd, neuron specific enolase decreased in NB-1 and SK-N-DZ and increased in GOTO.
  • (10) Most of the radioactivity in spleen cells from these rats were associated with antigen-reactive cells which formed rosettes specifically with HO erythrocytes.
  • (11) The origins of aging of higher forms of life, particularly humans, is presented as the consequence of an evolved balance between 4 specific kinds of dysfunction-producing events and 4 kinds of evolved counteracting effects in long-lived forms.
  • (12) The specific activities of extracts from cells grown under phototrophic and aerobic conditions were similar and not affected by the concentration of iron in the growth media.
  • (13) Proliferation assays using F3 showed that 15 (14 CD4+ and 1 CD8+) of the 18 isolated clones were specific for T. gondii.
  • (14) We have developed a new procedure for the rapid preparation of undegraded total RNA from cultured cells for specific quantitation by dot blotting analysis.
  • (15) Further studies are required to elucidate specific roles of the steroid-induced proteins in the effects of glucocorticoids on HTM and HS cells.
  • (16) In addition, the fact that microheterogeneity may occur without limit in the mannans of the strains suggests that antibodies with unlimited diverse specificities are produced directed against these antigenic varieties as well.
  • (17) Four other independent LCMV-GP2(275-289) specific H-2Db-restricted CTL clones also expressed V alpha 4 and V beta 10 gene elements.
  • (18) Training in social skills specific to fostering intimacy is suggested as a therapeutic step, and modifications to the social support measure for future use discussed.
  • (19) When compared with self-reported exposures, the sensitivity of both job-exposure matrices was low (on average, below 0.51), while the specificity was generally high (on average, above 0.90).
  • (20) The specific limited trypsinolysis of bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase (T7RP) was performed in the presence of various components of the polymerase reaction and some GTP-analogs--irreversible inhibitors of the enzyme.