Originally Posted by
FLvector
I've never heard it expressed that way, picking nits. Nits are the eggs sacks from lice, so how do you know he has head lice?? Or maybe it's pubic lice??
Anyway, I've always used nit-picking. Must be a regional thing.
The pasttime may be nit picking as you say, but a person more properly picks nits. Kind of like you and I are doing right now. What you advicate is very much how many folks say they are clothes washing or hair drying when they mean they are washing clothes or drying their hair. The activity known as nit picking (either literally or figuratively, it makes no difference) consists of a person picking nits.