pedants

He delighted in speaking to those who did not know how to answer him, whether because they were amazed at his arguments, or because they pretended to be so; but he called pedants, and avoided all persons, who by true reasoning pulled down the weak scaffolding of his arguments.

The memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt 1827

He delighted in speaking to those who did not know how to answer him, whether because they were amazed at his arguments, or because they pretended to be so; but he called pedants, and avoided all persons, who by true reasoning pulled down the weak scaffolding of his arguments.

The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova Giacomo Casanova 1761

He delighted in speaking to those who did not know how to answer him, whether because they were amazed at his arguments, or because they pretended to be so; but he called pedants, and avoided all persons, who by true reasoning pulled down the weak scaffolding of his arguments.

Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 07: Venice Giacomo Casanova 1761

The second fruit is, that in studying these principles we will become accustomed by degrees to judge better of all the things we come in contact with, and thus be made wiser, in which respect the effect will be quite the opposite of the common philosophy, for we may easily remark in those we call pedants that it renders them less capable of rightly exercising their reason than they would have been if they had never known it.

The Selections from the Principles of Philosophy Ren�� Descartes 1623

With these kind of pedants, the court, while I knew it, was always plentifully stocked; I mean from the gentleman usher (at least) inclusive, downward to the gentleman porter; who are, generally speaking, the most insignificant race of people that this island can afford, and with the smallest tincture of good manners, which is the only trade they profess.

A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding 1909

The worst kind of pedants among learned men are such as are naturally endowed with a very small share of common sense, and have read a great number of books without taste or distinction ....

The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I Various 1885

They were not afraid of being called pedants because they occasionally used a Latin phrase or referred to some great name of Greece or Rome. "

The Greatest English Classic 1912

"pedants" were the respective outputs of the two types of schools.

The History of Education; educational practice and progress considered as a phase of the development and spread of western civilization Ellwood Patterson Cubberley 1904

And the musing of a handful of gossipy Washington pedants becomes the informed opinion of millions of voters.

O: A Presidential Novel Anonymous 2011

Le Guin's 1994 afterword for The left Hand of Darkness, called The Gender of Pronouns: What a very dry, dull matter, of no conceivable importance to anyone but grammarians and pedants!

March 2009 2009