>People are well aware that they are nit picking, but they enjoy the resulting discussion! Intellectually inclined people enjoy discussing minutia with other like minded people. They are perfectly aware that it makes no difference, and they don't care - it's just something interesting to talk about. It's no longer nit picking about the original (i.e. the practical use is settled), at that point it becomes a discussion for its own sake.

Pedantry like that indicates that the person may be suffering from OCD, not that they have a high IQ. There is a correlation between intelligence and anxiety-spectrum disorders but there are, ofcourse, many anxious people who have low IQ's too.