Let's hear it for the Pedants!
Well, I admit I haven't read every word in this thread, but I think I've read enough to make a further point. "Pedantic" and "idiot" are linked together as though all pedants are idiots. Somewhere else there is a reference to a pedant being "purple with rage". He shouldn't be.
I'm a pedant. Nearly forty years of flying and training have taught me to be so. Instructions, commands, requests and SOPs must be absolutely unambiguous or they WILL be misinterpreted or misunderstood. I run an "Instructional Technique" course for Training Captains and I tell them why they, too, should be pedants.
That has nothing to do with being a choleric old bully, or a snide and sarcastic sniper, or any other of the character defects we have all unfortunately experienced. Let's keep the pedants, I say, and eliminate the defective characters!