Pedantry with Arnoud Visser
Overthink
Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D.
4.7 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2026
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mansplainers, know-it-alls, and Grammar Nazis. In episode 166 of Overthink, Ellie and David think about the figure of the pedant with philosopher Arnoud S. Q. Visser about his book, On Pedantry: A Cultural History of the Know-it-All. They discuss the history of the pedant, how the charge of pedantry can promote anti-intellectualism, and the inherently gendered nature of the pedant. Why are pedants usually men? Who were considered pedants in antiquity, and how does pedantry show up nowadays? What are the moral flaws of the pedant? Is pedantry objective, or does it lie in the eye of the beholder? And what does it mean to say someone is pedantic? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts share their most pedantic takes and dive deeper into Montaigne’s essay “On Pedantry.”
Works Discussed:
Michel de Montaigne, “On Pedantry”
Arnoud S. Q. Visser, On Pedantry: A Cultural History of the Know-it-All
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to overthink. |
| 0:16.2 | The podcast where your two favorite pedants talk about philosophy and everyday life. |
| 0:21.9 | I'm Dr. Ellie Anderson. |
| 0:24.3 | And I'm Dr. David Pena-Gusman. |
| 0:26.5 | All right. |
| 0:27.4 | So nobody likes to be called pedantic. |
| 0:31.2 | The figure of the pedant has an unquestionably negative connotation. |
| 0:36.4 | The author of the book we're going to be talking about today, which is aptly called |
| 0:39.5 | On Pedantry, defines the pedant as somebody who exhibits an excessive display or use of |
| 0:48.1 | learning. |
| 0:49.4 | And so the idea here is that the pedant is a very learned individual, but they misuse their learning. |
| 0:58.6 | They often lord it over other people. |
| 1:01.0 | They use it in an annoying fashion. |
| 1:03.5 | The pedant is not somebody you want to be stuck at a party with. |
| 1:06.5 | They're the no-it-all of the group. |
| 1:08.7 | They're the grammar Nazi, the person who's always nitpicking at everything everybody says. |
| 1:14.3 | And behind their back, everybody wishes that they weren't invited to the party in the first place. |
| 1:18.5 | And social groups tend to have a pedantic character. |
| 1:22.1 | And so if you don't know who the pedant in your social group is, who knows? |
| 1:26.2 | Maybe you are the pedant in your social group and you just |
| 1:28.7 | don't know it. Okay. I will say, David, maybe this is pedantic of me, but I don't think that's true. |
| 1:34.4 | So one thing is that- That is pedantic of you. Yeah. So one thing that are now to Visser, the author of the book, |
... |
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