A discussion about my blog name

[Jonathon]

Lately I've been thinking of changing the name of Arrant Pedantry. I'm in the middle of redesigning the blog so I can roll out the new design and link to the forum all at once. But I'm also wondering if I want to rebrand the whole thing at the same time.

I picked Arrant Pedantry as a name because I liked the joke and the domain name was available. At the time, my readership was probably in the single digits or maybe the very low double digits. I never counted on it turning into a thing that was read by hundreds of people a day. But over the years a few things have become obvious: (1) some people don't know how to spell my blog name; (2) a fair number of people don't know how to pronounce it; (3) a lot of people don't seem to know what the name even means; (4) even of those who know what it means, a lot of them don't seem to get that it's a joke. The fact that a lot of commenters seem to think that this is a blog where I engage in arrant pedantry or that I go by the moniker "the Arrant Pedant" tells me that the name doesn't communicate what I want it to.

So I guess I want to pick y'all's brains a bit. Do you know what "arrant pedantry" means? Do you know what it means in the context of the whole joke? It comes from one version of a quote that's often ascribed to Churchill, but it's been kicking around in various forms since before Churchill. Here's an example:

The Wall Street Journal, 9 Dec 1948 ("Pepper and Salt") The carping critic who can criticize the inartistic angle of the firemen's hose while they are attempting to put out the fire, has his counterpart in a nameless individual in the British Foreign Office who once found fault with a projected speech by Winston Churchill. It was in the most tragic days of World War II, when the life of Britain, nay, of all Europe, hung in the balance. Churchill prepared a highly important speech to deliver in Parliament, and, as a matter of custom, submitted an advanced draft to the Foreign Office for comment. Back came the speech with no word save a notation that one of the sentences ended with a preposition, and an indication where the error should be eliminated. To this suggestion, the Prime Minister replied with the following note: "This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."

Just to be clear, I'm not asking whether or not you like the name. I just want to know if the name is communicating what I want it to communicate.

[rivka]

a lot of commenters seem to think that this is a blog where I engage in arrant pedantry or that I go by the moniker "the Arrant Pedant"

Do you know what "arrant pedantry" means? Do you know what it means in the context of the whole joke?

Yes to both. I always thought it was a very clever blog name for a blog that examines why certain grammar/usage rules exist -- and whether they should.

[Jonathon]

Thanks, Rivka, though I'm not surprised to hear that you always got it. I think it's more of a problem with casual readers or random people who come across my blog.

And by the way, I really like this: "a blog that examines why certain grammar/usage rules exist -- and whether they should." I might have to borrow it as a tagline.

[rivka]

I'm not surprised to hear that you always got it.

And by the way, I really like this: "a blog that examines why certain grammar/usage rules exist -- and whether they should." I might have to borrow it as a tagline.

Excellent!

[Tante Shvester]

I understood the reference and the joke. I never considered if I liked the name or not. It made more sense to me than "Galactic Cactus."  That one I never understood.

[Jonathon]

It's the name of a painting I made many years ago. I use random portions of it as the background image on the GC blog. Here's a not-very-good picture of the whole thing:

[Keith]

I guess I never realized you could paint. I like the painting!

I've understood the reference/joke for as long as I can remember, but I have also seen you explain it before, and I'm not sure whether I ever encountered it or understood it before seeing you explain it.

[Jonathon]

Thanks, Keith! The sad thing is that I haven't actually done any art since college. I was getting an art minor and realized partway through that it was completely useless. Most minors give you a sample of courses all the way up to the 400 level, but the art minor at BYU only went up to some low 200-level classes. I wanted to learn a lot more painting techniques, but the only relevant class I could have taken was an intro to oils class. Plus, they were all pretty time-consuming, so I eventually just dropped the minor.

And then we graduated and lived in a series of small apartments with small children, so I really haven't had anywhere to paint. I still don't really have a good place even now that we own a house. I really need to figure something out one of these days.

[Ela]

I saw your quote for Arrant Pedantry and got that you were trying to make a joke by using that name for your blog. I don't think I thought that much about it beyond that.

Regarding Galacticcactus, I feel as though I've seen parts of the picture as background on the homepage of your galacticcactus.com website in the past, but I didn't realize it was from a picture you painted.

[Jonathon]

I have a secret page on GalacticCactus that explains it, but I guess it's more secret than I thought it was.

(It used to be a hyperlink on the cactus in the blog title, but I had to move it in the latest redesign. It's probably a lot harder to find now.)

[Ela]

Yes, when I checked to see if my memory about seeing parts of your picture on the homepage was correct, I noticed that things had been rearranged.

I don't remember ever seeing or looking for your secret page. I mostly used the homepage when my forum link wasn't working (and now I don't see a link to the forum there at all). And while I was there, I usually read your personal blog posts.

[Jonathon]

The link to the forum's still there. The nav bar is just at the top under the blog title rather than being a sidebar on the left.

But it's nice to know at least one person occasionally reads my blog (though I think it's been about a year now since I posted anything).

[Ela]

Oh, I see the forum link now. I had to zoom out to see it. Apparently my default view hides the navigation bar.

[Jonathon]

Huh, that's odd. Are you on a phone or a computer?

[Ela]

On a computer on Firefox, in this case. I may have set the default view size to be larger than normal, but it was a long time ago and I can't remember specifically. Sometimes, though not often, I have to zoom out to view things correctly.

On my phone on Firefox, I get a normal mobile view, with the navigation in the upper left corner of the screen.

[Jonathon]

Ah, that makes sense.

[rivka]

But it's nice to know at least one person occasionally reads my blog

At least two.

And I definitely recall finding the secret page, once upon a time long ago.

[pooka]

I understand the joke, but only because it was explained to me and I have been talking about English and Linguistics with you for, like a decade and a half.  And even then, I think there are enough things where you aren't permissive.  They don't really bother me, since to me, I know you have to ref by the rules of the game that is being played.  (I'm thinking of when I was in legal and capitalized stuff seemingly at random- if you knew all the conventions of medicine and nursing I might still be giving you fits of the vapors).  And I use hyphens apparently unnecessarily.  And there's some latin derivation I'd bet two bits on us disagreeing over (besides the one we already did, which was adulterate.) 

What is your preference/persuasion on AM and PM, by the way? 

So I think that while you think Arrant Pedantry only applies to you ironically, I don't think it's the case that you never correct people.  You just do so with certain rationales in mind.