He is overly pedantic, jealous to the point of paranoia, highly suspicious, snobbish, and cruel. In psychiatry, stilted speech or pedantic speech is communication characterized by situationally-inappropriate formality. A perfectionist, he remained in all respects a diligent, if somewhat obsessive and pedantic worker. Boris Sidis had once dismissed tests of intelligence as "silly, pedantic, absurd, and grossly misleading". Jobson, the Squire's pedantic and officious clerk, wants to pursue the matter on legal principle. Later, it became a byword for fussy or pedantic writers. They can also be naive, pedantic, insecure, cunning, indecisive, and pessimistic. Thaw was the definitive Morse, grumpy, crossword-fixated, drunk, slightly anti-feminist, and pedantic about grammar. For this reason, the tests use real-life scenarios rather than pedantic grammatical exercises. They may have a pedantic and precise manner of speaking, intermingled with inventive wordplay. She played Ann, long suffering wife of Martin (Briers), an obsessive and pedantic "do-gooder". His work is in general pedantic and truculent. Others, however, have found this distinction "rather pedantic". Usage of the original singular may be considered pedantic, hypercorrective, or incorrect. Additionally, many so-called nerds are described as being shy, quirky, pedantic, and unattractive.