Being more pedantic and paying more attention to detail

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I have a address and there is a apartment down the road from us, they are on the same street as our house and have the exact same number and exact same town but the only thing difference is SE and NE and the zipcode. But people in those apartments still get their address wrong because they put in NE instead of SE so we went up getting their mail. This boggles my mind, how can they get confused, didn't they see their address written down when they signed their lease? My mom says lot of people think SE and NE don't make a difference because they are so close together. Uh yes it does. Our city is decided into SE, SW, NE, and so on to make it easier for postmen. I guess I am detailed orientated more than others.

Also online there is a product that uses the word Space. It has their company name and then the word Space. Another company that makes the same product also came up with a new design and called it Space Cadet. The owner of the other company decided to take them to court after they have ignored their emails about their name and they had trade marketed the word Space for their product. The owner's concern is it will cause confusion among consumers and hurt his business of the other product doesn't go well. I said "Do people not know the difference between Space Cadet and ABU Space?" I am learning people are not this pedantic when it comes to products and they are lazy with their words so they will have a problem with saying "ABU Space or Tykable Space" so others would know which brand they are talking about. I was accused of doing a ego stroke when I wrote I guess I am unusual here because I have no problems being specific with names and products so avoid confusion and if there was a Apple Echo, just say Apple Echo so people know what echo product you are talking about. Someone used this as an analogy to get me to understand why the other company using the word Space in their name is bad. But my argument was "Just say Apple Echo and Amazon Echo." Now I conclude the ower is only suing the other owner because he wants to protect his business from people who will be too lazy to call that product by its proper name if they complain about it and people who are too dense to pay attention to the product name to tell the difference. I guess I have more attention to detail than they do.

I remember when I knew another autistic person, I saw he got a new Nintendo DS and it was one of those new DSi systems at the time so when I said to him "Oh you got one of those new DS's" and he said "DSi." Coincidence? He was pretty pedantic too about brands and didn't like me calling his new gaming system a DS when it fact it was a DSi but they all still played DS games. It would drive me crazy as a child if my Mom called our Sega Genesis a Nintendo so whenever she said "No Nintendo" I still played our Sega because we didn't have a Nintendo. I knew she meant the Sega but she called it by the wrong name and I wanted her to use the proper word for it. My therapist called it being non compliant. I also hate when people call binders notebooks. It's a binder. But apparently this is too hard for people. I used to think about purposely using different words for other things like call a farm a town and call our farm a city just to drive everyone crazy so they would know how I feel. And I make it all confusing for them and I say it's confusing for me too when they do it so quit calling binders notebooks. It's a BINDER! And don't get me started on couple. I will always give you two if you say "give me a couple." Maybe I should start saying "Give me ten pieces" and then say "This is it, only ten" and you say "You said ten" and I say back "But that is not what I meant, I wanted more" and you say again "But you said ten" and I say "you took it literal, I meant more." This is how a couple is to me when people ask for a couple. Then I explain couple is two, one and two, that is why relationships are called a couple because of two people.

Also do people think you are having an ego stroke or something when you are pedantic or pay more attention to the detail?

Do we tend to be more pedantic than other NTs when it comes to products and names and brands and pay better attention to the names?

I think it's very important to be very precise when you mail a letter. And be very precise when you give out your address.

4800 NE Whatever is about 12 miles away from 4800 SE Whatever.

Ooooh, this is a pet peeve of mine. When I was working, I had to deal with some rather arrogant folks at times. There was definitely a job related pecking order, and people with a certain type of degree could be annoying.

True story: I was in a discussion with a few people about a project issue. A chemical compound was involved. It was a salt - not like sodium chloride, more like erythromycin phosphate - complicated. And there was a technical issue with the "counterion" (the phosphate, in the erythromycin example): the salt wasn't soluble enough, so the counterion needed to be different. Science blah blah blah, sorry. But the detail mattered, very much.

So one of the "annoying" degreed professionals was out of his depth, I suspect, and began making snide remarks about the unimportance of counterions and how we were all just wasting his Very Important Time.

I looked at him over my glasses and said, very chirpily, "OK, Dr. XYZ. I'm just going to run down to the stockroom now, and get you some nice sodium cyanide to put on your burger at lunchtime, OK? Since counterions are so unimportant, we can save our sodium chloride for someone else."

I was VERY young, and it was the first time I'd ever spoken out like that.* There was a stunned silence and his jaw dropped. But then everyone started laughing (I was chirpy enough, I guess), and believe me I was relieved. He was a little snotty to me for the rest of the meeting, but he didn't trivialize the tech people's work anymore. Ever. (Not around me, anyway )

Yeah, details make a difference and sometimes it's a very important difference! Grrrrrrr....

*Edit in: it was also more than 30 years ago. I'd never say that now - not in those words. I'd instead tactfully point out that using NaCN rather than NaCl on our food would have some pretty significant consequences, so perhaps not ALL counterions are unimportant.

Most indubitably, Esme

Esmerelda Weatherwax, that was a really funny story.


I have some musical peeves like this. I hate it when people call a B flat "B", (because they ignore the key signature). B and B flat are like two people with very different personalities who just happen to live in the same address / apartment building. A B flat is not a B!

@Weatherwax: Counterions do matter sometimes. Calcium nitrate is water soluble, calcium carbonate isn't.

When it comes to me and details, whether or not I'll pay attention to them depends on whether I think it's important. For example when it comes to me and chemical reactions, I tend to focus mainly on what's going on in the reaction, rather than sweat the details. Did I just put in 2.05 g of sodium carbonate instead of 2.00g? I don't really care. Did I use acetone instead of methyl ethyl ketone? Ehh, it's just a solvent, whatever.

The same thing tends to happen when woodworking. Did that corner not come out quite square? Oh well, what I built still works like a charm! Missed a spot of paint there? Nevermind, I'll go deal with that tomorrow (usually that does indeed happen).

So, I do notice details rather often, but often don't bother to act on them. Unfortunately I often misread words (and numbers even more) over, and over, and over again... in some cases for years until I actually get it right.