An appropriate term for an overly by-the-rules person

Question

In Swedish, we've got a term that loosely translates as paragraph jockey. It refers to a person, often a clerk or a referee, who is following all the rules, prescriptions and agreements ad absurdum. The application is slightly derogatory but not vulgar.

In many cases, the term is used when a referee or a bureaucrat makes a call and, while being correct rule-wise, they miss the point of the system that the said rule is made to support.

The result of such call or decision may vary from non-essential, insignificant changes up to a totally weird and unintended destruction of the greater good.

Is there a term like that in English? My google-fu gave me Jack-in-office but when I wrote that to a friend, they didn't get the point at all.

Answer 1

In Swedish, we've got a term that... refers to a person, often a clerk or a referee, who is following all the rules, prescriptions and agreements ad absurdum. The application is slightly derogatory but not vulgar... the term is used when a referee or a bureaucrat makes a call and, while being correct rule-wise, they miss the point of the system that the said rule is made to support. The result of such call or decision may vary from non-essential, insignificant changes up to a totally weird and unintended destruction of the greater good.

Is there a term like that in English?

The other guys already gave you good words for referees and bosses ('stickler', 'jobsworth', 'martinet', 'petty tyrant') although, yeah, 'missing the forest for the trees' is closer to what you mean as far as the letter versus the spirit of the law.

I'll just note (a) that you might think of or refer to someone as a 'stickler for the rules' and tell them to their face not to be one, but you wouldn't usually just say 'you're being a stickler' as a pejorative challenge. It's just not how the term fits into the language.

(b) Since no one else has mentioned it yet, there's a lovely term for a scholarly or religious pedant:

sumpsimus

1. adherence to or persistence in using a strictly correct term in rejection of a more common (but technically incorrect) form.

2. a person obstinate or zealous about such correctness; a pedant.

Particularly on the internet, it's rather common to run into people who think being technically correct is the best form of correct... or at least worth affecting in order to farm some of that sweet sweet rep/karma/&c.

Answer 2

I have never heard the phrase "Jack-in-office" before. There are lots of words that are close to what you explained, but not exactly what you describe.

Following the rules very closely, while missing the point of these rules is called "Following the letter of the law, not the spirit." This is a very common expression. To my knowledge, there is no word for a person who does this.

Another word that is close to what you are explaining is "stickler". However, a stickler generally refers to somebody who follows and enforces the rules under any circumstances, not somebody who's missing the point of the rules. For example, a professor who refuses to accept a test because it was turned in 1 minute late would be called a stickler. Stickler is also slightly derogatory, but not vulgar. It's also informal.

Some related words from this thesaurus page are "perfectionist", "nitpicker", and "disciplinarian". These are all related, but I think stickler is closer to the word you are looking for.

Answer 3

Jobsworth

A common term (in Scotland) for someone who follows the rules ad absurdum (as you eloquently state).

Jobsworths are the unreasonably petty sort who appear to lack initiative and sound judgement, and there's always one nearby.

Answer 4

The correct and proper answer is, of course, a:

pedantic martinet

_{warning: that this is the correct answer does not preclude it from being utterly useless. I challenge you to ask 10 native speakers on the street what a "martinet" is ;)}

Answer 5

We don't. I mean, we didn't but do now: I'm guessing the next time this issue comes up, "paragraph jockey" will spring to my lips, so thanks for the contribution to English!

We have various words and expressions to mean someone who is a stickler about rules, very disciplined or strict in following them, but, no, as far as I know, English doesn't have a pejorative term for someone who is concerned with the rules to a fault and, hoo boy, does that tell you something about our culture.

But while we don't have a term for the person, we do have one idiom for the behavior: missing the forest for the trees. It's not a good match for your usage case of a referee making a bad calls, but it does mean losing sight of the bigger picture because of over-focus on details.

Other terms which may be of use include the adjectives doctrinaire, fanatical, inflexible, obstinate, and mulish. None of these capture the sense of following rules, but they do have the sense of being unwilling to compromise sensibly.

Answer 6

A survey of terms that are almost but not quite right
^{Including an explanation of what’s wrong with each one of them}

I can't think of a good noun for the kind of person you're talking about, despite having been fascinated by this particular kind of irrationality for years.

English does have a precise adjective for this mentality. Such a person is said to be rule-bound. But when you want a derogatory name to call someone, only a noun will do.

English does have plenty of nouns for people with this mentality, but all that I can think of are restricted in scope. A language lawyer or grammar Nazi is someone who is obsessed with following dictionaries' or grammatical authorities' pronouncements on language usage, thinking of language as a system of strict rules rather than a tradition always open to reasonable extensions and variations. Rules lawyer and rules Nazi are the same, but restricted to games. A fuss-budget refuses to compromise about small things, but this term doesn't emphasize official or articulated rules; instead it suggests only that the person is fussy about things that are idiosyncratic as well as unimportant. A literalist applies the letter of rules, ignoring their spirit, but this applies to any use of words, not just rules. For example, a "Biblical literalist" insists that the Bible is a literally true record of history rather than a collection of legends and traditional wisdom stories. A pedant insists on observing technicalities or esoteric senses of words that are mostly of academic interest, even in situations where practicality or the words' everyday meanings are clearly most relevant.

I've said "civil servants of science" to a couple friends and the meaning has been clear, but it's better suited to the UK than the US, and it requires an "of" to indicate a specific domain of application. If you just call someone a civil servant or bureaucrat, that suggests what you want, but it focuses on their occupation, not their mentality. Also, I think it's unkind to the people who perform those jobs in good faith and with common sense. People who do those jobs create stability that is extremely valuable and seldom appreciated. The overzealous application of rules should be distinguished from jobs that inherently involve rules.

A stickler for X is someone who is intransigent about X, but this does not by itself imply the kind of pusillanimous literality that you suggest. It suggests courage to uphold a higher standard in something than most people do, even, or especially, in situations not explicitly covered by rules or authority. Whether that's irrational depends on what the stickler is a stickler for. For example, a stickler for journalistic integrity (see this) maintains high standards of journalistic integrity where many journalists would cheat or compromise, while a stickler for form insists on observing rules or formalities even when reasonable people would normally bend or skip them. A stickler for rules (note the lack of an article) is dogmatic about following rules even in situations where their purpose isn't served, simply because they're "rules". A stickler for the rules suggests a person who insists on following the rules of a specific type of activity; that might be admirable or narrow-minded, depending on the rules and the situation.

By itself, a stickler is a referee who breaks up a fight, but this sense is obsolete. What all sticklers have in common is that their insistence on a high standard causes pain or annoyance to others. When you derisively call someone a stickler because their holding to a high standard caused you annoyance, without specifying what they're a stickler for, you convey that you are against any kind of high standard or integrity at all, regardless of the matter. In other words, merely calling someone a stickler as if that alone were enough to merit derision, suggests that the speaker is careless, spineless, corrupt, apathetic, a fence-rider, a cheater, a slacker, a rationalizer of petty iniquities, or any of the various synonyms for the flaw opposite the one you described—probably not what you intend.

After surveying as many alternatives as I could find, I would be delighted to see paragraph jockey gain currency in English. English is a big language, though. Maybe someone else knows of a good noun that's already well-established.

Answer 7

I think DJ McMayhem is probably right to say that stickler is the best general term.

However, you can be a stickler about more than just rules. The example there refers to being a stickler about language. We also call these people grammar-nazis. You could also be a stickler about cleanliness or manners. However, these are all really just examples of specific types of rules. To be more specific, you would call someone a "stickler-for-language" or a "stickler-for-rules" and so on.

Another term no one has mentioned yet is authoritarian:

2. One who follows and is excessively obedient to authority.

If someone is a stickler for administrative rules and red tape, I would say that they are an authoritarian.

Answer 8

Apparatchik is the noun I might reach for, depending on the context. It's not a precise fit for the definition you're looking for—I wish paragraph jockey or jobsworth were common in American English—but I believe there is some useful overlap with apparatchik. It literally means a low-level communist bureaucrat, a functionary in the party apparatus. But as borrowed in English, it connotes a cog in the machine, a useless person invested with authority, whose only competence is obeying orders.

Another related but slightly off-the-mark term is petty tyrant. That implies more of an abuse of meager authority than letter-of-the-law shortsightedness, but it doesn't preclude an obsession with the rules either.

Answer 9

Procrustean - enforcing uniformity or conformity without regard to natural variation or individuality.

I love this word, a brilliant explanation of people who are too afraid to not abide by the rules.

Answer 10

Goody-two-shoes is a mildly derogatory term for someone who is excessively virtuous or is overzealous in following rules.

The origin of the phrase is somewhat uncertain.

Answer 11

Much related to the Grammar Nazi, the Rules Nazi:

A Rule Nazi is someone who insists on his or her own strict interpretation of the rules of a game, even if the other players collectively disagree. Usually, a Rule Nazi will become petulant if the other players do not yield to his or her viewpoint.