Non-native speaker here.
I've heard the term Pet Peeve used in the past, and always felt it has a positive, self-humoring connotation.
Today I wanted to use it myself for the first time, in an email to a co-worker. I was writing to correct a typo she made in a specification document, which in fact changes the meaning, but can be easily understood to be a typo. Something like "Hi Jenn, a small pet peeve... ".
As I understood the connotation, what I meant is "I know I'm being Anal here but for the sake of accuracy...". To be sure, I've googled Pet Peeve, but the wiki entry didn't sound so positive:
a minor annoyance that an individual identifies as particularly annoying to himself
And it goes on with an example of a supervisor that gets mad at his workers for leaving their desk messy etc.
So, what term can better convey what I meant?