Why do you need to nitpick?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been reading a thread and someone will jump in with a post saying, for example, “Nitpcik, that book wasn’t published until 1930, so it’s not a 1920s novel” when what is being discussed is whether the book is a good example of American literature or not.

Nothing else, no contribution to the discussion, nothing to say about the topic in hand, just the need to jump into a talk and correct something which actually probably doesn’t change anything being said anyway. For the people that do this, can you tell me why? Do you think you earn points or something? Do you think we’ll all stop and say “wow, there’s a poster that’s a cut above the rest of us wikipedia-reading hoi poloi”?

By all means challenge incorrect facts and positions in a discussion, that’s the whole point of a debate or discussion in the first place, but if that’s the only thing you’re going to bring to the discussion then why bother? You might as well not have posted anything. Then there are of course the (hilarious) instances when people nitpick things and are wrong. Who’s laughing then, eh?

No doubt someone will be along to criticise my spelling or grammar any minute… now.

2

one

two

three

…

That is the CORRECT number, not two dozen of em :slight_smile:

But, I feel your pain. I can tolerate nit pickery IF the picker at least acknowledges that its nitpickery. Otherwise…well…lets just say…they ain’t helping their cause…

OTOH, nitpicker specifically for comic effect is golden IMO.

3

Sometimes a misspelling or typo is too hilarious, and too appropriate to the thread to pass up. I can’t say I’ve never nitpicked, EVER, but I don’t think I have very many times. However, especially regarding spelling and grammar, I can see where it could be hard to pass it by, and I’m often glad when someone has made a comment.

I know, I know, it’s “only” a message board, it’s “only” the internet, and language is a fluid, growing, changing blah blah blah (I partly disagree with that one BTW). But when a person is making a lazy, careless error (repeated and obvious it’s not just a typo) that’s a simple one “your/you’re” “irregardless” “I’m nauseous” etc, it adds annoyingly to the whole “dumbing down/let’s not bother to be correct because it’s snobby (or whatever)” effect imho.

4

It doesn’t change anything being said today. But I can’t stand the thought of someone walking away with an incorrect thought in their head. Not only do I nitpick when I can, but I also appreciate it when others nitpick, too.

I do, however, hate it when the nitpick turns into a hijack because someone is just being overly pedantic.

5

I’m the opposite of a nitpicker, but I’ll wager a hypothesis.

Nitpickers are highly detailed oriented. They are “small picture” people. I don’t mean this in a negative way; they just don’t see the grand scheme of things.

They tend to be control freaks, in my experience. If you give them a paper to review, they won’t give you suggestions on how to improve the content or structure. No, they will circle all the times you put in one space after a period rather than two, all the times you misspelled a proper name, or all the prepositions at the end of a sentence, as if this is an absolute rule (it isn’t, you fools). The real nitpickers, the ones that really annoy me, are so busy looking for the easy mistakes that they miss more subtle stylistic errors that add confusion, such as unreferenced pronouns, that are easy to overlook if you’re the writer.

These people will return your paper back to you covered in red ink and grin at you like they’ve done you a huge favor. I always think to myself, “Gee, thanks for doing what MS Word will do when I’m finally done with this thing. But that’s not really why I gave you the paper to review, dumbass.”

They tend to be very left-brain thinkers and uncreative. Unspontaneous, unoriginal, highly judgemental about stupid things. I don’t find them very good conversationalists either. Instead of listening to what you’re saying, they’re ears are keyed in on the grammatical errors and malapropisms that happen to slip out of your mouth–all ready to correct you no matter how inappropriate.

Of course I’m painting with a very broad brush, but I just do not jibe well with people who operate like this.

6

I surprisingly don’t mind nitpicking at all here, as long as it’s noted as such. It would be rude in real life, but for some reason it doesn’t seem out of place here. And you misspelled nitpick. :smiley:

7

But why would nitpicking bother you on a message-board? They are perfect for it; some one can pop in with the minor correction without interrupting the flow of conversation. And some people do like to keep their facts and straight and are glad of these clarifications.

I do not want to image what you would say to be negative.
Or want you think a well-written paper is, if you think spell-check ensures one.

Why do you think anyone should make the effort to offer substantive recommendations when you did not make the effort in your presentation?

Do you equate sloppiness with creativity, that you assume anyone with an eye and ear for detail must be unsponteneous, unoriginal, and judgemental?

Finally, and most importantly, I have associates I treasure for their proof-reading skills; their kind efforts help ensure my writings are useful and effective, and I will thank you to not … er, not to insult them.

8

Duty calls.

I agree that nitpicks should be apologized for as they’re made and it’s bad when they hijack the thread. But I appreciate dates and things being corrected so that I don’t come away with bad information in my head.

Saying “I can’t trust your argument because your grammar is sub-standard,” though, makes me go :dubious:. Barring straight out word salad, of course.

9

Some of us are just much more fascinated by some sorts of minutia than others. It’s no surprise to me that my two academic interests in college, history and biology, are both disciplines that rely heavily on brute memorization when you’re an undergrad. Some people just have ‘archival minds’ that thrive on storing trivia.

Often when I do it on this board, it is over a matter of historical detail and I try to make it relevant. For example, lets say someone says:

The name ‘Lorraine’ is derived from ‘Lotharingia’, a medieval kingdom named for the emperor Lothar I, a grandson of Charlemagne.

My nitpick on this would be:

Almost, but not quite. It was named for Lothar I’s son, also named Lothar, who inherited the northern part of the emperor’s ‘Kingdom of Middle Francia’ when he died. Since that northern region was a new creation that didn’t really have a fixed geographic name, it became roughly “Lothar’s land” or Lotharingia.

To me that’s an appropriate nitpick, as a correction of error. To others it is hopelessly pedantic, because who gives a crap which Lothar it was? The answer, selfishly, is I do and I would want to be corrected myself if I were wrong. 'cuz I like knowing ( arguably ) worthless details like that.

An example of where I would try to restrain myself from nitpicking:

Someone in passing, in a more general discussion of the Crusades refers in a bit of colorful storytelling about a medieval Christian army getting cut to pieces in some fashion by “scimitars” in a battle. I could nitpick that scimitars were a later innovation, possibly introduced by the Mongols and during most of the early Crusades Muslim troopers used straight swords and during the period under discussion blah, blah, blah…

Here I’d try to restrain myself because it’s a trivial error ( if one could even call it that ) and isn’t terribly relevant. Not saying I would, because the urge to pedantry is strong, but I’d try ;).

I’d never deny I’m a pedant, but I try ( there’s that word again ) not to be a smug asshole about it and to keep some reasonable lid on it. No doubt at times I fail.

Though I will say that in all other aspects of my life, I’m probably the opposite of a control freak :D.

10

Slams head into desk repeatedly

11

I believe you mean: “I do not want to imagine what you would say to be negative,” and “(o)r what you think a well-written paper is.”

You’re welcome.

12

Thank you very much.

(You see why I value people who can proof read so highly?)

13

It depends on what you’re looking for; I am a highly-detail oriented control freak type person, and I work in accounting where that’s all a strength. :slight_smile:

I don’t tend to nitpick too much here unless it is indeed an error, not a stylistic choice. I would rather see an error corrected than have it left there on the page, like a blob of pure, unadulterated evil, staining the human consciousness.

14

Using a word or phrase incorrectly can have implications and can create misconceptions.

Robbery is not burglary. Assault is not battery. Lodgers are not tenants.

If I use a word incorrectly, I typically appreciate someone “nitpicking” to educate me.

15

What’s the difference between robbery and burglary? I don’t really know, though I’m guessing burglary is more home invasion and robbery encompasses commercial properties? (see? now if I’d posted the wrong one, I’d be glad to have someone say “what I think you meant was Xxx”). :smiley:

16

http://www.whathappensnow.com/articles_show.cfm?id=194&cat=8&sub=1

If nobody’s home, it can never be a robbery.

17

If I give you a paper and say, “Can you look this thing over for me and make sure what I’m saying makes sense?”, I’m communicating to you that I’m not looking for you to rewrite my paper, but to examine whether my communication is effective. That includes grammar and spelling, yes. But I don’t need you to be a grammarian, nor do I want you to rewrite my sentences so that they reflect your style. I need you to look at the “big picture” and see if I have captured it all.

I’m confident enough in my writing abilities to know that I write well enough. I don’t need a grammar teacher. I need a colleague.

It is subjective what “substantive” is. Looking for spaces after a period is not “substantive”, IMHO. However, a dangling particple needs to be fixed, without a doubt. But as I said before, if a paper is in the draft process and I’m giving it to you with explicit instructions to “look for big things that I may have missed”, I am looking, well, for big things. Not “ooh, this should be ‘its’ not ‘it’s’!” A little bit of that is fine, sure. But if that’s all you can contribute, then I’ll find you pretty exasperating. I’m not going to lie. (And I do have coworkers like this and they drive me batty.)

Do you make giant leaps in conclusions?

Proof-reading is a valuable skill and I’m not knocking it. But I don’t work with proof-readers. I work with scientists and engineers. If all a coworker can contribute to the team is, “This red here is Mars red, but the red on the other map is orange poppy”, then I’m only going to go to that person when I need help on the color scheme of my maps. I’ll go to someone else when I need help crafting ideas or improvements to a plan.

I admit to having some prejudical bias. Most of the nitpickers I have met have been pretty obnoxious in their righteousness, while people with more “bigger picture” criticisms tend to be more open-minded and willing to debate. I’m much more like the latter than the former, so it is easy for nitpickers to bug the shit out of me.

18

Well I’ll be doggoned!

Thanks Bearflag

19

Why do I nitpick? For some reason, I feel it is my duty to correct misinformation if I can. Like a person seeing a drowning puppy probably feels about trying to save the critter. A built-in emotional response. I’ve learned to keep this instinct to myself most of the time, as people tend to hate nitpicking.

20

Me too. And since the information probably took a lot of effort for me to acquire in the first place, it’s an extra reason to find a use for it.

IRL I’ve found it’s not usually worth the hassle of it all, except amongst friends who are used to it and even expect it in some cases. :stuck_out_tongue: