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Comment by Digit-Al | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why they had such a thing for pedants.

Seems the word being translated is Σχολαστικὸς.

At its root its a person who doesn't work. A scholar didn't work and could devote their time to acquiring knowledge. But a lazy person could also be a scholastikos.

So I think here it is getting the double treatment, referring to a person who has lots of book smarts but no common sense.

Pedant kind of makes sense as a person who thinks themselves smart, so perfect for being the butt of a joke about being stupid. Pedant, afterall, was once just a word for teacher in English, but has taken on a negative connotation.

Is that where “pedantic” comes from?

You are asking whether pedantic is derived from pedant? I assume so. It can both mean like a pedant (emphasizing minutiae) or it can mean just dull, as we often think of classroom activities being dull, which is similar to didactic, although pedantic is probably only used in the negative sense where as didactic still has more neutral/positive usage in addition to meaning dull. So I am not sure if Pedantic ever meant generally to be related to teaching by design or intent.

The answer is "yes"

Pedantic describes the attribute of being a pedant. It is like "employee" and "employed." Hopefully this isn't too pedantic, haha, but they almost seem too closely related to describe one as coming from the other.

Today such jokes are made about engineers, mathematicians, and professors.

Iffy translation of “smarty pants” or “Mr know it all”?

I kind of wondered how much connotation, puns, etc. been lost to us over time. Things like that matter. A lot of these jokes would have a bit more color if "pedant" was seen more as "Mr. know it all".

"Well hello Mr Fancy Pants"

I was wondering the same. Was 'pedant' at the time more like what we'd call 'peasant' today?

Etymologically appears to be 'headmaster'. I imagine that this and the Cumaeans are just a "pick a specific because it's funny" joke. Partly this makes fun of a certain class intentionally, but partly just because it's specific.

For instance, there are also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardarji_joke

By the time the translation was made (~1920), it could also be "know-it-all" (I assume this started as a sarcastic use of its sense of "headmaster") which is pretty close to its typical meaning today—to me it implies someone who often, unnecessarily or inappropriately, corrects others, but that may be a recent connotation, and it's still close.

We'd have to find the original text and consult a translation dictionary, I expect, to figure out exactly which sense was intended.

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