word choice - Alternative expression/term to trivial use of 'OCD'


After being reproved for doing so myself on SO yesterday. I realized that over the last couple of years the meaning of the expression OCD, seems to have deflated. Up to the point where people(read I) mostly associate it with pet peeves like the price of a fill up at a petrol station and the amount of litres, not both being round or misaligned street tiles.


It is obviously very useful since most of us can relate to this feeling to some degree. However, in a slightly more formal context like SE, this obviously is not an appropriate word to use since its trivialises a very serious affliction and therefore might be hurtful to people suffering from real OCD.


What would be a viable alternative in a context like this?



Answer



The cheapening of psychiatric terms is not restricted to OCD, look at what has happened to "psychopath". (Where I used to live, it has come to be identical with "ex-husband".)


As HotLicks says, we can go to its root with "obsessive", or if exercised on language (if the cap fits, wear it) we have "pedantic". In general, "niggly" and "picky". Area51's "fussy" can also be a noun, namely "fusspot", which I think our grandparents would have used for the people you have in mind.


You might like to speed-read Jane Austen for what she called ladies who absolutely had to have their toast just so, or early Hollywood biographies for stars who went postal if towels were wrongly laid out.


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