Anal

The Jolly Contrarian’s Dictionary The snippy guide to financial services lingo.™ Go Premium Index — Click ᐅ to expand: Dictionary Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Requests? Insults? We’d love to 📧 hear from you. Sign up for our newsletter.

Anal /ˈeɪn(ə)l/ (adj.)
Excessively pedantic (supposedly owing to conflict over toilet-training in infancy, or having been beaten up, had one’s lunch money stolen and ones head jammed down the lavatory at boarding school). Consequently, a anal retentivity can be a single, overwhelming source of joy for a certain kind of legal eagle, whose infantile psychosexual development promotes defecation — over your elegant draft — as the major source of sensuous pleasure and self-awareness. It is as well that you understand this, so you can react to it. See especially the anal paradox.

See also

• Anal paradox