It Depends On The Context, Actually

My sister is an English major in her junior year in college, while I am in grad school for engineering. I am ranting about the annoyingly exacting specifications for writing a graduate thesis.

Me: “They want everything in this one particular reference style, which is, of course, different from what the rest of the world uses.”

Sister: “That sounds annoying.”

Me: “And they nitpick the headings and all that, as well. I mean, does ‘anal retentive’ have a hyphen?”

My sister pauses to think about this for a long time.

Sister: “Arrgh! Don’t do that! Now I have to look up ‘anal retentive’!”

Me: “Sorry, didn’t mean to break the English major!”