Pedantry for All

What precisely is wrong with pedantry then? There are times when you need to be exact, for example if you're translating a holy book think of the schism you could cause if you mistook similar words and ended up with twenty years of holy war because you wrote "bear skin" instead of "bare skin", not to mention the fact that Winnie the Pooh and his pals would probably be waiting around the corner to give you a good kicking. And it would be very unlikely that there'd be any honey left for tea either...

And of course there are times when you do need to follow the letter of the law and not the spirit of it. I of course once again refer to my guv'nor and his penny-pinching ways over food hygiene. It does not matter one bit to him that there is a reason for food to be labelled "after opening use within x days" as he wouldn't take any notice of it at home - just remind me not to go round there for a meal that's all I'm saying. I really don't think I've got the stomach for antique ham or vintage bacon so old that it was probably made just after the Battle of Hastings and has featured on the Antiques Roadshow. And he think's I'm being fussy - well just wait until environmental health come calling...

And talking of pedants Mister Squeaky (a Giant Rubber Goth Bat of leisure) clearly has too much time on his wings and has apparently (so he claims) spent the afternoon hanging about in dictionary corner in the vague hope of attacking Carol Vorderman with a pot of bio yogurt and the offer of a debt consolidation loan. He tells me that I'm completely wrong about golf and any fool knows that its played with raquets and not sticks...