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How would you reference an issue that is of little meaning but takes lots of attention for no apparent reason than just being the only thing that is interesting?

I've researched some words such as

  • Petty Fight
  • Bun Fight

Yet I don't feel these dwell well enough with the word I'm looking for.

RegDwigнt
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Maxim Veksler
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    "A storm in a teacup" is a common idiom. Since you don't appear to have done much research, I'll leave you to look up the meaning. – Mick Nov 03 '16 at 20:53
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    Would you accept spat? – deadrat Nov 03 '16 at 21:08
  • Mick why would you say I didn't do research? I did come up with terms such as "petty fight" and "bun fight" but not being a native english speaker research is obviously harder for me. – Maxim Veksler Nov 03 '16 at 21:17
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    @Mick I've always heard "tempest in a teapot" (AmEng, BosWash corridor). "Storm in a teacup" is new to me; where is that used? – ab2 Nov 03 '16 at 21:49
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    @ab2 It's the BrE equivalent. – Mick Nov 03 '16 at 21:56
  • @MaximVeksler It is always better to summarise what you have discovered yourself in your questions. It reassures us that you aren't being lazy. Sometimes, it is hard to tell. – Mick Nov 03 '16 at 21:58
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    "Spat" or "tiff" describes a small (though possibly heated) disagreement. – Hot Licks Nov 03 '16 at 22:13
  • Similar question here, with many of the same answers: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/351476/an-argument-between-lovers – Richard Kayser Nov 04 '16 at 01:25
  • A storm in a teacup, a temptest in a teapot, much ado about nothing, making a mountain out of a molehill, bikeshedding, sweating the small stuff, all heat no light, all gong and no dinner, and many others can all be found in the question I am closing this as a duplicate of, as well as the many related questions linked from there. – RegDwigнt Nov 04 '16 at 13:16
  • You are approaching this backwards, Maxim. You have come up with one expression in a language you don't know, and are now trying to come up with synonyms for it, still in the language you don't know. What you should do instead is first think of all the different expressions for this in your mother tongue, and then get translating. Certainly your mother tongue has a wide array of expressions apart from "petty fight". And certainly you can think of dozens of them quite easily, because hey it's your mother tongue. Once you're done with that bit, that's when you start translating. – RegDwigнt Nov 04 '16 at 13:21
  • (Also, you misspelled your surname. It's spelled Wechsler.) – RegDwigнt Nov 04 '16 at 13:23

2 Answers2

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In my field we use the word "bikeshed" or "bikeshedding" to describe this -- a reference to Parkinson's law of triviality whereby, for example

...a fictional committee whose job was to approve the plans for a nuclear power plant [spent] the majority of its time on discussions about relatively minor but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials to use for the staff bike-shed, while neglecting the proposed design of the plant itself, which is far more important but also a far more difficult and complex task.

everybody
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My choice for a single word is "bickering." If you need to stretch it out a bit, say "continuous bickering."

1. to engage in petulant or peevish argument; wrangle: The two were always bickering.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bicker

1 Argue about petty and trivial matters. ‘couples who bicker over who gets what from the divorce’

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bicker

Pooneil
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