Comments on: Peaked

By: Tamara Cooper

Tamara Cooper — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 00:17:17 +0000

So, just to clarify: I come from the South. Here, we say, “You look a little peak-ed.” In writing a novel, would it be proper (ha! if I can use that word loosely in this context!) to spell it peak-ed so the reader will know that’s how it’s being used? Thanks!

By: Harold Fethe

Harold Fethe — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 12:48:41 +0000

No less a literary lighthouse than Tennessee Williams used the two-syllable pronunciation in an obscure poem cast as a blues lyric. I just now stumbled upon this diadem & will perform it, possibly for the first time in human history, at Cameron’s Pub in Half Moon Bay, CA this Thursday night. Stop by if you’re in town!

Kitchen Door Blues

My old lady died of a common cold
She smoked cigars and was 90 years old
She was thin as paper with the ribs of a kite
And she flew out the kitchen door one night

Now I’m no younger’n the old lady was
When she lost gravitation, and I smoke cigars
I feel sort of PEAK-ED and I look klnda pore
So for God’s sake lock that kitchen door!

By: Tom Cox

Tom Cox — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 21:48:11 +0000

In Macbeth, Act I, Scene III, the First Witch says, “Shall he dwindle, peak and pine”.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 20:12:35 +0000

An eye dialect needn’t signal a special pronunciation. It may indicate something else, such as rusticness, as in spelling victuals as vittles even though the outdated word victuals is pronounced exactly the same.

By: Phyllis

Phyllis — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 05:16:21 +0000

Yes, but why the variant pronunciations ? Does the 2- syllable peaked “ill” derive from the regional English derivation?

By: Earlene Smith

Earlene Smith — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 19:56:50 +0000

Peak-ed
There is an obscure verse in the song “My Darling Clementine” where, after she drowned, her father (the miner, 49-er)
“soon began to peak and pine”.

This only verifies what we already know and we know that people also pine away. Just wanted to throw that into the mix.
Am doubtful of the origins guessed at here as one having reached his peak or pinnacle.

By: Vicky Ayers

Vicky Ayers — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 20:54:39 +0000

Eye dialect is misspelling words to indicate that they are pronounced in an odd way. Like “wudges” to mean “would you”.

By: Steve Dunham

Steve Dunham — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:11:04 +0000

I had known this word as “pekid,” meaning to appear unhealthy, but it’s not in Merriam-Webster’s 10th Collegiate Dictionary, and that left me wondering, “Well where did I get that from?” The OneLook Dictionaries website offered only one dictionary listing pekid: Wictionary, which says that the word is an “eye dialect spelling of peaked.” Now I’m even more confused. What is an eye dialect?