At some point, American English decided to move "pedantry" from the "Purely Descriptive" column, over to the "Offensive" column. I was not informed of this change.
Tricky one, isn't it? If you frame yourself as an antihero, notoriety is fame. When Elliott Ness referred to Capone's notoriety, he was arguing that Capone was an infamously bad dude. But if you viewed Elliott Ness as the bad guy, notoriety is dope. I mean- But I also think that the meaning was diluted a long, long time ago because
Depends on your perspective. I try to be very precise with my speech. I value it. Not being precise makes me cringe. I can see the layers of meaning that, for me, need to be distinguished and operated upon separately. Most people don't see it that way, which is how you get "pedantic" as an insult. I really don't know it is that makes such high precision to be so distressing. I wish I did. My only theory is that higher-level precision is overexposure to most people, in the same way too much light hurts our eyes - but I have no clue how close that is to reality.