peak, peek, and pique

[snugglekitty]

Incorrect usage sometimes gets me piqued.



"pique (verb)
\PEEK\
What does it mean?
1 : to arouse anger or resentment in : irritate; especially : to offend by treating with disrespect
2 : excite, arouse
How do you use it?
My brother's teasing and poking finally piqued me so much that I lost my temper and threw my math book at him.

The second sense of "pique" is often confused with the verbs "peak" (meaning "to come to the highest point") and "peek" (meaning "to take a quick look")."

I am so tired of seeing people write "my interest was peeked." Using fancy words does not make you look smart if you can't use them correctly. Stick to what you know, or look it up to make sure!



What error do you frequently see that gets you annoyed?

Comments

[clonetwin.livejournal.com]

Incorrect use of "beg the question."

[clonetwin.livejournal.com]

Or, um, "begs the question," rather.

[bossym.livejournal.com]

I critique writing. I have a Word file with passages to recopy, to comment on common errors. It contains several lines about to, two, and too, it's and its, and so on. One runs something like: "Watch your homophones. I *peeked* in a book about mountain climbing. It *piqued* my interest in scaling a *peak.* After climbing, I was *peaked* and needed to rest."

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Can you give me an example? I don't think I see many people use the phrase, correctly or incorrectly.

[clonetwin.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

[saraheeyore.livejournal.com]

wellstar and I were talking about this the other night. Mine is when people write "should of" instead of "should have".

[veek.livejournal.com]

The usual. Apostrophes. Consistently poor spelling. Verbal tics (as in, like, having every other, like, word be, you know, "like"). I've broadly categorized language use that annoys me as usage that indicates a lack of feel for the language, or just plain inattention.

Says the girl who just wrote the above sentence. I plead late hour and two margaritas.

[cyclothemia.livejournal.com]

I hate txt spk. So much that I have refused to meet people who use it. If you can't be bothered to write the whole word, I can't be bothered to speak to you. However, with that said, my aversion has led me to spend forever texting messages to friends, since I don't abbreviate!

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was not aware of the controversy. I'll keep it in mind.

[curly-chick.livejournal.com]

Their, there, they're

It's verus its

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. "Should of" fills me with wrath.

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Yes, I feel your pain. What I can't stand is unpunctuated texting. For some reason, the word abbreviations don't bother me as much as using dashes or line breaks in place of actual punctuation.

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Another great example of the same aggravating problem.