{"id":6649,"date":"2012-02-13T12:03:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T17:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=6649"},"modified":"2012-02-13T12:08:24","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T17:08:24","slug":"my-latest-grammar-pet-peeve-peek-peak-and-pique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2012\/02\/13\/my-latest-grammar-pet-peeve-peek-peak-and-pique\/","title":{"rendered":"My latest grammar pet peeve: Peek, peak and pique"},"content":{"rendered":"

D<\/span>ear Internet Friends,<\/p>\n

I love you dearly, but you make me want to bang my head on the desk when you confuse the homonyms peek, peak and pique.<\/p>\n

I would have thought the difference between peek <\/em>and peak <\/em>should be fairly straightforward, but when I saw them interchanged for the third time in a single day recently, I knew I had to write this post.<\/p>\n

Peek:<\/strong>
\nverb: <\/em>1. to look furtively. 2. to take a brief look.
\nnoun:<\/em> 1. a furtive look. 2. a brief look.<\/p>\n

Peak:<\/strong>
\nverb <\/em> to cause to come to a peak, point or maximum
\nnoun:<\/em> the highest level or greatest degree (see here <\/a>for more definitions)
\nadjective:<\/em> of, relating to or being a period of maximum intensity or activity (ie peak business hours)<\/p>\n

Every time you misuse one of these spellings for the other, an angel loses its wings.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, “pique” is a bit more of an obsure term and I may be able to forgive some misuse. But not after today!<\/p>\n

Pique:<\/strong>
\nnoun:<\/em> a transient feeling of wounded vanity; resentment. (ie “He slammed the door in a fit of pique.”)
\nverb: <\/em>to excite or arouse, especially by provocation, challenge or rebuff.<\/p>\n

Here’s a quick quiz for you, with the most common incorrect usage I’ve seen:<\/p>\n

“Wow, that’s interesting, you’ve really ____________ my curiousity now!”
\n(a) peeked
\n(b) peaked
\n(c) piqued<\/p>\n

You picked (c), right? Right! Now go out and pique somebody’s interest while you’re in peak grammar form. Stay tuned for my next rant on “wallah!” versus “voil\u00c3\u00a0!” <\/p>\n

Okay, grammar geeks, now it’s your turn: which grammar errors are curdling your milk lately?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Internet Friends, I love you dearly, but you make me want to bang my head on the desk when you confuse the homonyms peek, peak and pique. I would have thought the difference between peek and peak should be fairly straightforward, but when I saw them interchanged for the third time in a single … Continue reading “My latest grammar pet peeve: Peek, peak and pique”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-inner-geek","category-rants-and-rambles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6649"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6652,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649\/revisions\/6652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}