boffin vs pedant

boffin

noun
  • A person with specialized knowledge or skills, especially one who is socially awkward; (in a weaker sense) an intellectual; a smart person. 

  • An engineer or scientist, especially one engaged in technological or military research. 

pedant

noun
  • A person who makes an excessive or tedious show of their knowledge, especially regarding rules of vocabulary and grammar. 

  • A person who is overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning. 

adj
  • Pedantic. 

How often have the words boffin and pedant occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )