The act of picking out minor mistakes in a discussion, it is being "xxxxx".
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1nitpicky? (minimum comment length achieved)– HellionCommented Jun 9, 2014 at 12:36
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1nitpicking; being a quibbler, niggler fault-finder, hyper-critic, caviller/ caviler ...– KrisCommented Jun 9, 2014 at 12:37
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picky– Matt E. ЭлленCommented Jun 9, 2014 at 12:54
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1 Answer
As @Hellion suggested, nitpicking or nitpicky would be good, but pedantic means the same thing, more or less, and is much more common as this Ngram shows.
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1+1. I would favour nitpicking when the minor point isn't actually relevant, and pedantic when it's relevant but still minor. Commented Jun 9, 2014 at 13:27
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Nitpicking is a less formal term for 'being pedantic', I agree with @Jon Hanna that their common use suggests nitpicking is well suited to someone objecting to a misspelt word in an otherwise syntactically correct and logically valid sentence, where pedantic would be objecting to a minor logical inconsistency or unhandled detail that isn't relevant to the overarching point.– SamCommented Jun 9, 2014 at 14:28
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1Pedantic was precisely the phrase I was looking for. Thanks! Commented Jun 10, 2014 at 14:45