TASK DEFINITION: Generate the answer for a given question. The question requires common knowledge of English. Make sure that the answer is in detail, long, consistent with the context, and requires general knowledge of English. To be less repetitive, please vary your language for each question. Give a proper explanation to answer, and if necessary, provide the definition of various terms. And conclude your answer if it's long. If you have used other resources (e.g., Merriam Webster's.) to answer the question, include citations in your answer. You don't need to paraphrase the context of your resources, but make sure that your answer is consistent and complete.
PROBLEM: I am looking for a word that incorporates all, or most, of the following (when referring to a sentence or a piece of technical literature): Highly academic Not useful (despite being technically correct) Overly verbose/eloquent Superfluous (to be honest, this seems to incorporate the rest, but I want to see if there is a better word here) Sample sentence (I hear it's required): There are many ____ white-paper definitions which only serve to dazzle the reader with the author's purported intelligence.

SOLUTION: The two most common, apart from Lux's pretentious, are going to be pedantic in the manner of a pedant, hence a. excessively concerned with minutiae. b. needlessly displaying academic learning. and pompous (originally) characterized by pomp and splendor. (now the primary sense) affectedly solemn and self-important. You'd use the first if the important aspect was how unimportant the information being shared was, the later if you wanted to emphasize the (undeserved) self-importance with which it was being shared. Since scholars have been writing for ages and this kind of behavior was, if anything, more common during the era when all scholars were monks, there are absolute scads of synonyms for variants and subvarieties. Some, like precious, could be considered gendered slurs; others, like bookish or nerdy, may not be taken as negative at all in our present culture. Two of my favorites are mumpsimus and sumpsimus.

PROBLEM: I was googling the reason for why it's called 'shotgun' to ride beside the driver when it suddenly hit me - why on Earth is the firearm called 'shotgun'?! Is there any other kind of a gun than one used for shooting?! Why is it called 'shotgun' instead of just a 'gun' or a more technical term (9-gauge, barrel gun etc.)?.

SOLUTION: The 'shot' in shotgun refers to the ammunition that the gun fires. Whereas a pistol or rifle fires bullets (single metal balls), a shotgun fires a shell packed with shot (hundreds of tiny metal balls).

PROBLEM: Possible Duplicate: Do you use 'a' or 'an' before acronyms? Does one use 'a' or 'an' before the word 'X-Ray'? Quite simply, should a sentence read 'a XML report' or 'an XML report'?.

SOLUTION:
It's 'an XML report', because which form of the indefinite article to use is decided by how the next word is pronounced. In this case, it's pronounced: An ex-emm-ell report 'XML' begins with a vowel sound, 'e', so an is used rather than a.