Flaming Nibs Blog

A colleague tweeted about taking a ‘sneak peak’ at something.

She received a response from one @StealthMountain, who wrote ‘I think you mean sneak peek’. Typo corrected. Thanks.

Click on @StealthMountain’s Twitter profile – and you’ll find this is the only tweet they send out. It seems their account only exists to say ‘I think you mean sneak peek’ to different users. I wouldn’t have thought so many people even used that phrase, never mind did it incorrectly.

I’m flummoxed as to what kind of  a person does this. However, it does seem like there’s a need for @StealthMountain’s service. He or she is not sending out their tweet daily, weekly or monthly. At the time of writing, late on a Monday morning, ‘I think you mean sneak peek’ went out 14 times in the last hour. Their total tweets at the time of writing is 26,382.

I like to be told when I’ve messed up my grammar, punctuation and spelling – I make a living out of getting it right, after all. You’ll never catch me marching down Righteous Avenue with the angry grammar brigade, making threatening gestures with a bottle of correctional fluid and tutting over every stray apostrophe. I just think good English is elegant, and bad English is a shame.

I like the gentle approach – which is why I’m quite taken with @StealthMountain, and wish him or her every success.

If there are any equally vocational tweeters out there just looking for a cause, here are ten more suggestions for a Tweeting raison d’être.

1. I’ve been pouring over my books. ‘I think you mean pore’.
2. You’re going to loose the match. ‘I think you mean lose’.
3. This really effected me. ‘I think you mean affected’.
4. It had a powerful affect. ‘I think you mean effect’.
5. They have lost there dog. ‘I think you mean their’.
6. A complimentary glass of wine. ‘I think you mean complementary’.
7. No descent from me! ‘I think you mean dissent’.
8. The imminent scholar. ‘I think you mean eminent’.
9. I could of killed him. ‘I think you mean could have’.
10. I’m on tender hooks. ‘I think you mean tenterhooks’.

Got any more? Leave your comment below.

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