Subject: [FFML] Re: [RANT] Typographical/proper word choice rant
From: "James Champagne" <galathane@hotmail.com>
Date: 8/22/2002, 8:25 AM
To: "The Eternal Lost Lurker" <lurkerdrome@sbcglobal.net>, <ffml@anifics.com>


I'm falling off the Nitpicker's Anonymous wagon by adding to this, but...

silly race with you around the sun--which is really dangerous!--than you
****have another thing coming****, and that "provided the fish so I
should
get a
little leeway" line isn't going to cut it here!"

Notice the phrase I've outlined with asterisks, people.

I see this far, far too often in fanfics, and even in professional
writing.

I'd just like to know what malfunction in the human brain makes people
think
"thing" is the word that actually belongs in that expression.

Because if you think "thing" is right for that expression, then...

YOU HAVE ANOTHER *THINK* COMING.


It isn't a matter of getting the idiom wrong, really. It's a case of
mishearing translating to misspelling.

Say the two versions out loud, one after the other, NATURALLY, not slowly
and clearly.

"You have another thing coming." "You have another think coming."

They are almost indistinguishable. In the second version, the K and the C
sounds are the same, and so are pronounced together. "Thincoming". The
sounds are reduced, and the words ellided. Now, in the first version, the G
sound vanishes. It's suppressed, and most people have to force themselves to
pronounce it distinctly. The effect is the same. What you say, and what most
people hear, is "thincoming".

So, unless you KNOW the written idiom, "thing coming" is a reasonable
approximation. Rather like "spitting image", though wrong, is how most
people have learned the true saying "spirit and image", the way it was
originally spoken.

Verdict: A verbal corruption, but acceptable usage.

James Champagne
galathane@hotmail.com

- Who breaks down sobbing when he realizes he actually gets paid to know
this stuff...

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