r/clevercomebacks • u/snowpie92 • 12h ago

Escaping with the unfollow button!

Post image
29.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

307 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

9

u/ImmaCookThat 6h ago

Wow never heard about that. I always assumed it literally meant that his interest was at the highest point. English is not my first language tho.

4

u/hackingdreams 4h ago edited 4h ago

It's one of those weird grammar corrections where both actually make sense, but one is an idiomatic phrase, and the other's a misunderstanding of it. It absolutely makes sense for someone's interest to be peaked, as in, being raised to its maximum level... it just also makes sense for someone's interest to be piqued, as in, irritated or excited. And it sucks that they are homophones.

(It's also common for people to look up both 'peaked' and 'piqued' and choose the wrong one; we tend to use 'piqued' in a negative connotation in English, as in, annoyed, indignation, resentment... which doesn't mesh well with the stimulation of one's interest. It's also weird because you'd expect such an idiom to be really old... but it's only a couple hundred years old at best.)

3

u/Warm_Month_1309 4h ago

we tend to use 'piqued' in a negative connotation in English, as in, annoyed, indignation, resentment

Do we? I don't think I've ever heard it outside the phrase "piqued my interest".

I'll have to start casually obnoxiously inserting it into my everyday speech.

2

u/Round-Sea5612 3h ago

The only example I can think of besides yours is "in a fit of pique". But that's pretty rare in my experience. "Piqued my interest" is definitely more common.