A Nicer Way to Say Someone is Picky
How do you say someone is “picky” (but not be rude)?
Picky Has A Negative Connotation
Many words are loaded. This means they have an extra negative or positive meaning. If you want to avoid the extra meaning, you have to pick a neutral meaning instead. For example, if I say, “She claimed she was a doctor,” the hidden meaning is, “- but I don’t think she is.” To avoid the hidden negative meaning, I could just say, “She said she was a doctor.” When you use the word “picky,” it has a negative meaning. It means someone is very careful about choosing. The extra feeling can be that “it is too much.” So, they are “too choosy.” Someone using it does NOT always feel negative about the person’s choosiness, but there are better words that avoid the negative feelings altogether. What are they?
“Choosy” or “Particular” are more Neutral
If you’d like to say that someone is “picky” in a subtly more honorable way, use the words “choosy” or “particular.”
There is an advertising slogan that comes to mind here. “Choosy moms choose Jif.” I don’t think they would have very much peanut butter if they had said, “Picky moms choose Jif.” No mom wants to be seen as “picky.”
For Example: Instead of “She is very picky about the music she listens to.”
You can say, “She is very choosy about the music she listens to.” OR “She is very particular about the music she listens to.
This means she is highly selective but it doesn’t carry the potentially critical or negative connotation (hidden meaning).
Here are some other examples:
He is very particular about his wines.
They are very choosy when it comes to clothes.
Because we have allergies, we are particular about the breed of dog we have.
She is choosy about the kind of perfume she wears.
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