What is the definition of peep, or rather what exactly does it mean in regards to all social media, etc., well, everything? I have looked in the dictionary and have gotten the expected definitions, to look, and one definition for people. I have heard a few people refer to, I think, their audience, as peeps. When did this originate and why? What is the correct usage in this regard?

I won’t repeat everything I learned along the way, but here’s some of it.

The verb peep meaning a soft, high-pitched sound like that of a baby chick has been in the language since 1400. The noun came along a little later, with the meaning “a slight sound.”

The noun peep, meaning “a glance,” especially through a narrow opening, dates from 1460. Peep in this sense may come from the same word as peek, ME piken, “to look quickly and slyly.”

So much for the traditional meanings of peep.

Here are some uses of the word on the web:

1. Reviews – Hal’s Book “The Peep Diaries”
2. Peep My New Weather Widget.
3. BeautyDialogues: Happy Easter all you Peeps

The Peep Diaries is by Hal Niedzviecki, a Facebook junkie. He invited his 700 Facebook “friends” to a real-time party, but only one showed up. He defines the networking phenomenon peep culture:

Peep culture is reality TV, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace and Facebook. It’s blogs, chat rooms, amateur porn sites, virally spread digital movies . . .

The second example uses peep in the sense of “check this out.”

In the third headline, peeps is the plural of a noun “peep” meaning “person.”

I haven’t been able to track down a date of origin for the use of peep to mean “person.” As for “the correct usage in this regard,” the word belongs to the realm of slang. I can’t think of any context in which it could be considered to be correct. One can hope that in time it will dwindle into disuse.

As for the expanded uses of peep in the senses of looking and voyeurism, they seem to me to be reasonable adaptations of the word.

Our ESL readers may find the following “peep” expressions of interest:

peeping Tom: a pruriently prying person. The expression is commonly linked to the story of Lady Godiva.
not a peep: not a sound, not a word. Sit down and be quiet, said his mother. I don’t want to hear another peep out of you.
the peep of dawn: the first sign of light in the morning. The fisherman rose at the peep of dawn.
peep show: “a display viewed through a small hole” Such displays are used in museums to show off miniature objects or tiny dioramas. The most popular connotation of peep show, however, is a sexual display of some kind, viewed surreptitiously.
peephole: a small opening in a doorway that allows a person inside to see who’s on the other side of the door. All rental units must have one.
Peeps: marshmallow candies shaped like chicks and other animals or shapes. They’re most prevalent at Easter, but are also produced for other holidays. According to Wikipedia, they are made from marshmallow, sugar, gelatin and carnauba wax.

You can read the first chapter of The Peep Diaries on the O site.

Could you do a feature on “so be it” and “sobeit?”  I thought for sure it was always written as three words until a discussion on a court reporters’ message board came up about a proofreader saying that it should be a one-word word.

Sobeit is a word and so be it is a clause. Neither is much used in ordinary conversation or writing, but legal language tends to be on the old-fashioned side.

The clause so be it is a subjunctive expression meaning “let it be so.” Example:

Aladdin: I want a huge palace with a thousand servants and a swimming pool.

Genie: So be it!

Sobeit can be used as conjunction or as a noun.

As a conjunction sobeit means “provided that, if.” Example:

I will finish this 800-page novel, sobeit I live long enough.

Sobeit can also be used as a noun, as in this example from the OED:

Thou answerest me an houre after..like to a Sexton with a Sobeit or Amen.

Whether to spell it as one word or write it out as three words depends upon the context.

I used a word today and immediately questioned my use and the history of word over the last decade or so.  The word was “impacted.”  As in “That incident really impacted me.”   Is that a correct usage historically?  It seems that it’s not correct as soon as I said it although I hear people use it that way!  (but how many talking heads use irregardless?!)

The use of the past participle impacted to mean “had an impact on” is fairly recent.

The original sense of impact (v.) is “to press closely into something, It’s from Latin impactus, pp of impingere, “to push into.” The word Impinge comes from the same source.

The form impacted has until recently been used to describe something that is closely wedged together. Teeth, for example, can be impacted. A bone that has been crushed can have impacted fragments. Other things not nice to mention can be impacted.

Coleridge used impact in 1817 as a noun to mean “the effect of coming into contact with a thing or a person. Ex: That had an impact on him.

Nowadays the noun impact is also seen in the plural in the context of various occupations:

impacts – A measure of viewing to advertisements. One impact is equivalent to one viewer watching one 30-second advertising spot.

impacts – Effects of pressures on the status of surface water and groundwater

impacts – The significant consequences of a government program activity, either intended or unintended, and either positive or negative.

The earliest recorded use of the verb impact to mean “to strike forcefully against something” dates from 1916. If something can be said to impact something, then the participle use is sure to follow.

Like so many shortcut words beloved by headline writers, impacted in place of “had an impact on” is here to stay:

Has the Economy Impacted Your Earnings?

How space exploration has impacted our health

How Globalization Has Impacted Labor

How football hooliganism has negatively impacted the sport …

Nevertheless, I find it disconcerting. When I hear someone say, “That really impacted me,” I have the mental image of a body all mashed in on itself.

Re: is used at the top of letters and emails in order to steer the reader to the single most important topic of the message:

Dear Sir,
Re: Your order of 10/3/09

Re: Your submission For Whom the Bell Tolls

I’ve seen Re: explained as an abbreviation of the words “regarding” or “referencing.”

However, Re is not an abbreviation for anything.Re: means “re.”

Re is an English preposition in use since at least the 18th century. It means “in the matter of, with reference to.”

Like sic, re is a Latin word. It is the ablative form of the Latin noun res meaning “thing” or “affair.” Lawyers use the legal phrase in re when a proceeding is not brought by a person, but has to do with something like probate, or a public project like laying out a highway.

NOTE: Watch out for the definition “in regards to” given at Wiki Answers.
“In regards” is nonstandard English for in regard to.

So, rushing to my own defense, I pulled down the New Oxford American Dictionary, a dictionary I prefer to Webster’s, for a number of reasons, as detailed below, and there I found:

One of two or more available possibilities

but with a rider that added:

Some traditionalists maintain that you can only have two alternatives and that uses of more than two alternatives are erroneous. Such uses are, however, normal in modern standard English.

There was also a note about the difference between the use of “alternate” and “alternative” in American and British English – anyone writing for both markets should be very well aware of this distinction – it’s a very important linguistic distinction and is not to be ignored.

Dictionary.com (based on Random House) misses out this important note about the modern use with two or more choices, and Merriam-Webster also ignores the whole issue entirely.

However, my older printed edition of the Oxford English Dictionary makes no mention of more than two alternatives.

So who was right, my mother or I? Well, it depends on the dictionary you use, it appears. But it just shows the importance of having at least one alternative to your main reference book when you are checking these things.