A lot of jobs these days seem to require candidates with “a meticulous eye for detail” – which is one of the reasons Boris Johnson is in the wrong line of work.

I like to think it’s one quality I possess. Even as a youngster I had an eye for detail. I spotted a jarring flaw in the fairytale Cinderella that everybody else seemed to miss.

For those who need reminding, Cinderella’s fairy godmother magically ensures she can go to the ball where Prince Charming hopes to find a bride.

She turns a pumpkin into a golden carriage, mice into horses, a rat into a coachman and lizards into footmen. She then turns Cinderella’s rags into a beautiful jewelled gown, complete with a pair of glass slippers. The fairy godmother tells her to enjoy the ball but warns her that she must return before midnight, when all her finery will change back.

Cinderella leaves at the stroke of midnight and in her haste leaves one glass slipper behind, and the prince uses it to find her and marry her.

But why hadn’t that glass slipper changed back at midnight like the rest?

I also took serious issue with The Flintstones. Dinosaurs make frequent appearances. Indeed Fred works as a brontosaurus crane operator.

But dinosaurs died out around 66 million years ago, long before the first human-like creatures appeared five million years ago. Homo sapiens is only 130,000 years old.

Then there’s Star Trek. The crew of the USS Enterprise boldly go where no man has gone before, and yet everywhere they arrive the inhabitants speak English. Not even everyone on this planet speaks English. I doubt whether it’s spoken in other galaxies.

There’s a name for those who quibble over details like this. It’s pedant. But I don’t see why being pedantic is such a bad thing, if a meticulous eye for detail is a good one.

Nor am I the only pedant. I read of a doctor who found an inaccuracy in the Hitchcock film Psycho, where Janet Leigh lies murdered on the shower floor. Her eyes have normal-sized pupils, but any murder victim would have pupils widely dilated. It ruined the film for him.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary calling someone a pedant wasn’t always a criticism. Originally it meant simply a teacher.

Of course words change their meanings over time and now it means those who sweat the small stuff. But why not sweat the small stuff? It’s often easier to fix than the big stuff.

Pop lyrics are sometimes grammatically wrong, sometimes meaningless and sometimes both at the same time, and offer plenty of scope for pedantic complaint. So The Beatles sang: “She’s got a ticket to ride, but she don’t care,” when it should be “doesn’t”.

Queen asked: “Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?” I won’t.

Both groups produced enough great music for these to be overlooked. But take the All Saints’ song Never Ever, that begins with the words: “A few questions that I need to know.”

You don’t “know” questions. Either they meant: “A few questions that I need to ask” or: “A few answers that I need to know.”

The Clash faced the dilemma: “Should I stay or should I go?” and pondered: “If I go, there will be trouble. And if I stay it will be double.”

Well then surely it’s obvious. Staying will cause twice the trouble that going will create. So go.

It’s not just pop musicians that talk or sing nonsense. The old will bemoan the young by saying: “Kids these days – they don’t know they’re born.”

Maybe I grew up cocooned in late 20th century privilege, with colour TV, free university and central heating. But I never thought I hadn’t been born.

Or when something gets lost and is eventually found, they’ll say: “It’s always in the last place you look.” Of course it is. Why would you look for something, find it, and go on looking for it?

All this pedantry may give some people a pain in the neck. But if it’s about using language clearly and accurately then it matters.

And it’s hard to know where exactly you would draw the line. Many people are irked by the “grocer’s apostrophe”, or confusion between“their” and “there”. If so then it’s also wrong to use a word like “criteria” as a singular rather than a plural – or to suppose that humans co-existed with dinosaurs.

Call me a pedant if you like. I suspect most non-pedants just aren’t as well informed as they should be.