single word requests - What do you call someone who thinks everyone is incompetent (doesn't know anything)?


I'm looking for a way to describe someone who thinks everyone is incompetent (that is, doesn't know anything) and always has to explain every minute (small) detail because his perception of the person's competence is that it's very low (thinking the person is not that smart).


If this person were here, he'd probably end this post with...



P.S. To answer the question go to the bottom of the page, type in the answer, and then hit submit. I should be able to see it relatively quickly.



How would you describe somebody like that?



Answer



The compulsive need to exolain everything in the minutest detail is contained in the rhetorical term Epexegesis



epexegesis (ɛˌpɛksɪˈdʒi:sɪs) (Collins) (plural) -ses (-,si:z) (rhetoric)




  1. the addition of a phrase, clause, or sentence to a text to provide further explanation




  2. the phrase, clause, or sentence added for this purpose




Example: ' his field or his male servant or his female servant, his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbour' is an epexegesis of 'your neighbour's house (beth).'



Epexegetic, and epexegetical, are formed regularly. On the analogy of Athlete from Athletic, the perpetrator of obsessive explanation is an epexegete: (cf. 'exegete' n.)



epexegete (ɛˌpɛksɪˈdʒi:t) (hapaxlegomenon)


(noun) a person who provides minutely detailed explanation.



That doesn't cover the infantilizing attitude this person shows to those around; but it sort of describes the obsession that is so annoying.



infantilizing: treating someone as if that person were a child, with the result that they start behaving like one: (Cambridge online)



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