"overly pedantic"

[fairy!]

What does that mean?? 

I looked up pedantic in a dictionary but it didn't really explain!  Thanks x

[jno]

pedantic means paying great attention to detail, to getting things perfect, and is often used in a slightly derogatory way. To say someone's overly pedantic might imply that he couldn't see the wood for the trees - that he was paying too much attention to the letter of the law rather than the spirit, that he got so engrossed in minor details that he was failing to see the bigger picture or remember what he was doing it all for. 

[Loosehead]

It is picking holes that are true but irrelevant to the main point of what's being said or written. It's the smart ass kid who spots spelling mistakes when you're doing Geography. It's when a person always finds the exception to something you say when you are using an analogy to explain something else It's picking holes in facts that you may come up with. For example, if I was to say "The Spine Taled Swift is the fastest bird" a Pedant would say "ah but a Peregrine falcon is faster in a dive" they are correct but they knew that I really meant "In normal flight, The Spine Tailed Swift...etc" but they chose to try and score points by being pedantic.

[jno]

loosehead, Spine Tailed not Spine Taled on its first mention in your post.

Like that, fairy!

[Loosehead]

Well done jno, knew I could rely on you to spot the deliberate mistake! You see now fairy?

[Octavius]

Actually it's fairy with a !

[Clanad]

And with a comma...

[Loosehead]

surely it's an ! .......

[THECORBYLOON]

Surely it should be "For example, If I WERE to say etc."

[THECORBYLOON]

Before someone points it out, the "If" should have a lower-case "i"-I added the first two words as an after-thought and didn't correct the spelling.

[Peter Pedant]

Are there degrees of being pedantic?

Some things do not admit qualification - you're married or not, something is perfect or imperfect, other things are started or finished and not half finished.....

Some people would say that I am being pedantic about this, but perhaps they would not say overly pedantic.....

[jno]

You're certainly not underly pedantic, Peter.

fairy! - you sorry you started this?

[THECORBYLOON]

Since folk have each pointed out different errors in the same passage as examples of being pedantic there must be degrees of pedantry as one person could have identified all the errors in one go, thus being more pedantic than the others. 

[fairy!]

Ha!  Thanks for all your help guys!!