pettifogging

Therefore, as has already been mentioned, this is not about standing up for pettifogging local interests.

To force them out, especially as winter comes, seems a cruel, pettifogging way to exercise authority.

And that, you know, not tying them up with endless pettifogging regulations.

The details, the times and places, the pettifogging pettiness of it.

Beijing brought a measure of reality to pettifogging and posturing.

As should be clear by now, "Bunker 13" is not a work of cautious and pettifogging realism.

Very well, it is a pettifogging Committee, but we must not give citizens excessive expectations or illusions.

Don't give me any of your pettifogging middle-class economies.

Still, he retained the instincts of a pettifogging bureaucrat, and the simple fact was that these people had no documents.

How pleasant it is to have a path to follow, to not have to make pettifogging decisions at every turn!

What's one detective-lieutenant less just so long as your pettifogging rules and hidebound regulations are concerned?

Through most of its existence, the Council has viewed itself as a slightly pettifogging, rather legalistic arbitrator.

And you, like some pettifogging lawyer, but cavil at it and pick faults.

All the silly pettifogging rules and regulations that hamper us all nowadays.

Of course, this country has a deep, rich culture of pettifogging busybodydom.

A single saveloy was enough to bring my entire metabolism to a halt, but at that moment it seemed a pettifogging detail.

Air traffic was under pettifogging emergency restrictions, but a train system, built in pioneer days, still ran, and a station lay near the hotel.

The request generates an extravaganza of hilarious pettifogging.

His pettifogging filibuster has two dangers.

But where do you get a more devastating picture of the pettifogging Russian bureaucracy than in "Inspector General"?

When all the invention and pettifogging arguments are finished, the inescapable fact is that Israel has been colonizing the occupied territories.

"It was more that he hadn't done anything... he called him a miserable pettifogging little clerk.

Eventually he had persuaded them to let him take enough, and was disgusted that they had made him lose his temper with their pettifogging.

By his pettifogging delay, he drives up the cost of investigation - and then complains about the cost to taxpayers of prosecution.

I mention all this pettifogging detail only to explain my lateness - and why you and your friends are not going direct to England.'