pettifogs

The pharisaical, malefic, and incogitant Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing is a product of the pointy-headed wowsers at the Association of American University Presses who established a Task Force on Bias-Free Language filled with cranks, pokenoses, blowhards, four-flushers, and pettifogs.

P.J. O’Wowser superversive 2009

In the name of a bogus crisis in broadband deployment, the FCC is today lathering on an array of network stimuli and subsidies as part of a new "National Broadband Plan" that will transform this current font of U.S. economic growth into a consumer of taxes and a playground for pettifogs.

Cap and Trade for the Internet George Gilder 2010

He pettifogs with his witnesses to establish his theory.

Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 Devoted to Literature and National Policy Various

Verb to pettifog (third-person singular simple present pettifogs, present participle pettifogging, simple past and past participle pettifogged) 8500 was just a number I picked out of thin air.

hazel8500 Hazel 2010

… Collectively these newcomers wielded billions of dollars of available capital, petawatts of imperious brainpower, a practiced disdain for bureaucratic pettifogs, and Olympian con fi dence in their own judgment and capabilities.

SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2009