Subject: [FFML] Re: [FFML][RANT] Typographical/proper word choice rant
From: Gary Kleppe
Date: 8/22/2002, 12:41 PM
To: FFML
Reply-to:
gary@garykleppe.org


At the risk of perpetuating this spam thread....

On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 07:09:04 -0700 (PDT), Brian Welch
<bwelchz7@yahoo.com> wrote:

The phrase, "You've got another thing coming," is a
widely accepted American idiom... I'm not familiar
with its etymology, but I would guess that it's
evolution is the result of people not realizing that
"think" can be correctly used as a noun.  

I had never heard of "you have another think coming", 
but after a little research it appears to be an excerpt 
>from a once popular (and purposely ungramatical?) joke 
that ended with "If that's what you think, you have 
another think coming." 

I'm not sure whether it was a specific joke, or just a general
colloquialism. In any case, I'm surprised to see how many people are
unfamiliar with the expression. [Waves bottle of Geritol angrily] What'n
tarnation are them thar schools teachin' you young folks? Why, in my
day....

Ahem. Anyway. :)  In a nutshell, Lurker is right. While it's true that
"think" as a noun is ungrammatical, as some people have pointed out, its
use as one in this expression is an obvious deliberate license, and the
overall meaning is clear -- that you had better think again. "Thought"
would be more correct, but isn't used in the usual expression simply
because it doesn't sound as nifty. Using "thing" is okay technically,
but the resulting expression doesn't quite mean what you obviously want
it to mean, or in fact much of anything at all. I've got another thing
coming? Gee, that's a little vague. Am I due for an extra birthday
present? Is Benjamin J. Grimm going to drop by? It's not really a
question of grammatical versus ungrammatical. It's a question of sloppy
usage versus using words as precise tools -- of using them as if they
*meant* something.

And yes, it's possible that this was a mistake on the part of the
character and not the author. But if that's the case, I'd suggest that
the author do something to acknowledge this in the story so that we
*know* it's intentional on his part. Might be some humor to be had here;
maybe the character being spoken to starts asking what thing he has
coming, how soon it's due to arrive, etc. Otherwise, perhaps he could
just change it to "think again" and render the point moot.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.garykleppe.org/comics.html
Writing from work; please reply to gary@garykleppe.org

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