Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement?

[Bisz]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

Heh, I've certainly never heard of it being a geographical acceptance. I think it's simply erroneous to be using the word in that context in the first place. It's only encouraging the wrong use. Although the conversation is certainly piquing my interest

I've never heard of the side of a mountain being called its peak either...

 

[Christopher]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

If something piqued your interest you aren't on a slope, otherwise your interest would still be piquing, i.e. increasing, or else if you are on the downward slope then your interest isn't piquing at all but waining. If something piqued your interest you are at the peak (local maximum) of an interest vs. time graph, not on an upward or downward slope.

Its fairly simple, try to keep up.

"Peaking" means increasing. To pique, in this sense, is to provoke or arouse (something). Pique is the French word for "to prick." If something piques your interest, it metaphorically pricks at it and stimulates it into action, the way you'd provoke a slumbering person or animal by poking them with a sharp object. So it's meaningless to say "your interest is piquing." Your interest is the thing that gets piqued. And it's got nothing to do with slopes or increases or local maxima.

 

[Bisz]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

"Peaking" means increasing. To pique, in this sense, is to provoke or arouse (something). Pique is the French word for "to prick." If something piques your interest, it metaphorically pricks at it and stimulates it into action, the way you'd provoke a slumbering person or animal by poking them with a sharp object. So it's meaningless to say "your interest is piquing." Your interest is the thing that gets piqued. And it's got nothing to do with slopes or increases or local maxima.

Read up a bit to get where the slopes come into it

Its a very convoluted argument, I know, but I feel like Set Harth was needlessly an asshat so days later, here we are still discussing my trivial mistake.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

If something piqued your interest you aren't on a slope, otherwise your interest would still be piquing, i.e. increasing, or else if you are on the downward slope then your interest isn't piquing at all but waining. If something piqued your interest you are at the peak (local maximum) of an interest vs. time graph, not on an upward or downward slope.

Its fairly simple, try to keep up.

"Peaking" means increasing. To pique, in this sense, is to provoke or arouse (something). Pique is the French word for "to prick." If something piques your interest, it metaphorically pricks at it and stimulates it into action, the way you'd provoke a slumbering person or animal by poking them with a sharp object. So it's meaningless to say "your interest is piquing." Your interest is the thing that gets piqued. And it's got nothing to do with slopes or increases or local maxima.

Exactly. A mountain's peak might pique's one interest, especially if you have a peak at it through a window and witness its majesty and then decide to go on a hike to the top of the peak.

 

[Forbin]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

You peek through windows. Though some windows do indeed have peaks, if they're pointy on top.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

When I was fifteen I found some of it educational; I don't even find most of it to be entertainment any more.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

You peek through windows.

Thank you. Unfortunately, people's knowledge of how to spell "peek" seems to be eroding because of the understandable, if annoying, reflex to unthinkingly spell "sneak peek" as "sneak peak," a usage I come upon increasingly often these days.

 

[Deckerd]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

You peek through windows.

Thank you. Unfortunately, people's knowledge of how to spell "peek" seems to be eroding because of the understandable, if annoying, reflex to unthinkingly spell "sneak peek" as "sneak peak," a usage I come upon increasingly often these days.

My god you sound like me.

You really don't want to be me.

 

[Set Harth]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

If something piqued your interest you aren't on a slope, otherwise your interest would still be piquing, i.e. increasing, or else if you are on the downward slope then your interest isn't piquing at all but waining. If something piqued your interest you are at the peak (local maximum) of an interest vs. time graph, not on an upward or downward slope.

Its fairly simple, try to keep up.

It's simply a mistake and wrong. When something stimulates your interest you are not necessarily at a local maximum, because based on the content of the subject in question your interest could easily increase beyond that point once you found out more about it. You can't even avoid contradicting yourself: you claim "piquing" means "increasing", but continue to insist that it also means a local maximum. An increase, represented by an upward slope, and a local maximum are still not the same thing, whether speaking graphically or geographically or whatever other excuse you might come up with. Assuming a stimulation of interest to be a local maximum means that the interest must automatically decrease after the initial stimulation, but this would not necessarily be the case. Homonyms do not share meaning. Trying to make them do so in this instance is pointless and nothing more than an attempt to cover a mistake.

Unfortunately, people's knowledge of how to spell "peek" seems to be eroding because of the understandable, if annoying, reflex to unthinkingly spell "sneak peek" as "sneak peak," a usage I come upon increasingly often these days.

Annoying? Yes. Understandable? Not so much. The context of "sneak peek" usually has nothing to do with the meaning of the word peak. If it were a preview of an upcoming film about mountain climbing, then maybe it would make a certain kind of sense as a double entendre. But generally it doesn't.

 

[stj]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

On the aside about the confusion of peak and pique. It's hard to believe there's much mass confusion caused by the peaks in a graph, local or global maxima or not.

On the other hand, the word "piquant" is plainly related and has absolutely nothing to do with peaks.

I think it's all just a homonymic confusion, slightly embarrassing. But getting all bent out of shape over misspellings is slightly mean. Which do we think is worse?

 

[Deckerd]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

It's not like differently spelled words have different meanings or anything, is it?

 

[RandyS]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

I think this question comes up because we sci-fi fans are so used to ridicule by everybody else that some of us feel the need to justify our love for the genre. Why can't it just be about entertainment and leave it at that? After all, some of the real science presented in sci-fi books are so far above the heads of the average reader (such as myself) that you need training in that area to even begin to understand it. And for some (again like myself) who have learning disabilities in math and science (yes, me), this can be hard.

That's a really long-winded way of saying that for me, it's entertainment, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

^But what makes fiction educational is that it contains stuff you don't already know. That's what gets you curious to learn more.

 

[Starbreaker]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

But something doesn't have to be educational to be enjoyed.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

Nobody said it had to be, but I certainly don't see them as opposed goals. I enjoy stories that teach me new things.

 

[Forbin]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

My understanding of the gravity effects of being close to an extremely dense object began when I read Niven's Neutron Star.

To this day, I won't go near a politician.

 

[RandyS]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

My understanding of the gravity effects of being close to an extremely dense object began when I read Niven's Neutron Star.

To this day, I won't go near a politician.

Now, THAT'S education!

 

[Owain Taggart]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

You peek through windows. Though some windows do indeed have peaks, if they're pointy on top.

Gah, you're absolutely right. Dang, I was tired when I wrote that. I guess it shows? I don't normally make typos like that. I know better. What's worse is I double-checked and never saw the mistake.

On the other hand, the word "piquant" is plainly related and has absolutely nothing to do with peaks.

Yeah, I realized that which is why I deleted it from my post. I meant it more as a in jest following related words, but it wasn't translating very well from the french root meaning of "pique", which as Christopher says means "to prick". It ended up muddying my point.

 

[Klaus]

Re: Science Fiction: Do you find it educational or just entertainement

I took a peek and it seemed that this lexicographical fit of pique over proper work usage has finally peaked! How piquant!