sneak peak

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:41 PM -0400 6/11/07, James Harbeck wrote:
>>From myfoxny.com, today:
>
>----
>Sneak Peak of New Mets Stadium
>If you're a Mets fan, or someone who just loves ballparks, you should
>get excited for the new Citi Field. Take a behind the scenes peak at
>construction progress.
>----
>
>It's not a mere typo, as it's repeated. I'd hesitate to call it an
>eggcorn, however. I think it must just be a misspelling. One that was
>not caught by their site editors, if they have any. But "sneak peak"
>gets 1.4 million hits on Google... about 200,000 more than "sneak
>peek" does. I have to conclude that a great many people believe that
>is the correct spelling of the word that their dictionaries futilely
>declare is "peek".
>
>I wonder how many of them believe it's the same word as the one for
>mountaintop and would come up with some explanation, e.g., that a
>mountaintop peeks ("peaks") through the clouds, or whatever.
>
Could it be influence from the "sneak"?  Would the "sneak peak"ers be
equally likely to refer to someone "peaking" around the corner or
"taking a peak" at something/someone?  Basically, I'm talking
orthographic assimilation here.

LH

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