doryphore

Feb. 25th, 2014 08:42 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (words are sexy)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
doryphore (DOH-ri-fohr, DOH-ri-foh) - n., someone who gets inordinate pleasure from detecting minor errors, a pedantic nitpicker.


Coined by Sir Harold Nicolson in 1952 from the French word for the Colorado beetle, hence a pest. This was at one time the genus name for the potato beetle, from Greek doruphoros, a spear-carrier -- the beetle being sometimes called a ten-striped spearman in the regions of the US, a reference to its ten black stripes. All of which is mere gloss to the pestiferous nature of the beast -- and the person.

---L.

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