Loved The King’s Speech. Not too many films run the gamut from soliciting belly laughs to cheers and tears. But I was informed by my daughter that applause at movies was one of her pet peeves. I hope she took my enthusiastic clapping as more mischievous than mean.
I liked her explanation of “pet peeves” as intrinsically irrational. She’s pretty much right, but if you want the full story:
Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of the phrase “pet peeve”? Oddly, I was writing a rebuttal to someone’s spreading disinformation about “sleep tight” and the phrase popped into writing. — Fred Strathmann.
Excellent question, and I’m glad to hear that you are out there rebutting disinformation about “sleep tight,” meaning to sleep soundly or well. I assume the story your correspondent was spreading involved tightening the strings supporting a mattress or hammock, which is taking the “tight” a bit too literally. “Tight” has, as I’m sure you know, been used to mean “soundly, roundly or well” since the 18th century.
A “peeve” is something that annoys or irritates you, and since irritation is a highly individual emotion, one’s “peeve” mileage may vary from one’s neighbor’s. I am “peeved,” for instance, by people who assume that my license plates (which refer rather cryptically to books) mean that I spend every waking hour rooting for the Ohio State Buckeyes. Buckophiles, conversely, are probably peeved at the cool disdain with which I disclaim any pro-Buckeye sentiments.
For a word that expresses a universal (one presumes) human emotion, “peeve” is a remarkably recent coinage, first appearing in print as a verb only in 1908 and a noun (the thing that peeves) in 1911. Both “peeves,” however, arose as what linguists call “back-formations” of the much older term “peevish,” meaning “ill-tempered,” that first appeared in the late 14th century. Back-formations, the derivation of a “root” word from a more complex form, are common in English — the verb “to sculpt,” for instance, was formed from the much older word “sculptor.”
The precise derivation of “peevish” is uncertain, but it may be related to the Latin “perversus,” meaning “reversed, perverse.” The original meaning of “peevish” was simply “silly or foolish,” but by about 1530 it had acquired the sense of “irritable, ill-tempered or fretful.” Surprisingly, it then took several hundred years to develop “peeve” as the word for the irritating agent or action. “Pet peeve,” meaning the one thing that annoys you more than anything else, first appeared around 1919. The “pet” (in the sense of “favorite”) formulation probably owes its popularity and longevity to its mild perversity (“favorite annoyance” is a bit oxymoronic) as well as its snappy alliteration.
— from Word Detective
I promise not to applaud again. It’s not often that all three of my grown children accompany us to the movies, so I will behave myself and not hog the popcorn or clap thunderously. Yay for New Year’s Eve’s special treats!
Now, a small voice inside of me said “a tv movie” but I shushed it. And forget the guys – wasn’t Helena Bonham Carter magnificent?