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If you think that...

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Sax

06:05 / 05.11.03

Ahem.

Bear

07:31 / 05.11.03

It's Thing, think doesn't sound right at all!

Ariadne

07:36 / 05.11.03

If you think I'm posh, you've got another think coming, pal.

ibis the being

13:38 / 05.11.03

Sax, that man clearly has a brain disease and we should be sympathetic.

of course it's a matter of opinion linguafascist.

all right then, pretty soon everyone will be sipping there expressos, sighing 'I could care less,' as I am, for all intensive purposes, literally beside myself with anger.

grant

19:40 / 05.11.03

from Sax's link:
One minute you’re saying: “I thunk I’d go a-callin’ on that purty little cow in the top field but Pa done tol’ me I had another think coming,”, and the next you’re wearing a mask made out of dead people’s faces and chasing people around with a chainsaw.

Well, yes.

We need to do that to correct the people who use "thing" instead of "think," because they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

20:30 / 05.11.03

It's 'think'. Plain and simple. No arguments.

And "when people say "i could care less," instead of "i couldn't care less." has got to be one of my biggest linguistic annoyances, nearly as much as "You could of told me!".

The "could care less" brigade are mainly American in my experience; I've heard it in movies, on American TV shows and read it on US websites and it just doesn't make any fucking sense!

Stop it.

Now.

08:49 / 06.11.03

Look, it's not often that I feel so passionately about something in the Conversation, but "another think coming"?? What the fuck?

It's obvious to me that a load of illiterate americans with lazy mouths have been slurring the Queen's English so as to run the "g" on the end of "thing" into the initial "c" of "coming" thus creating this monstrosity. As evidence, see the fact that the phrase "you've got another thing coming" is used independently from "If you think that..." merely to indicate that what you have coming to you is not what you wanted. At some point this was turned into a nonsensical and frankly unfunny pun, which some misguided people now seem to have taken as gospel.

[/rant]

Quantum

12:15 / 06.11.03

This thread is still going? Anyone in doubt, look at Sax's link for the 'thing' case (where a journalist with a brain disease does a quick poll around the office) then check your local dictionary, or the post above that quotes one, then decide for yourself.

"You could of told me!" Euw, that's horrible. As long as the people who use it know it's wrong, that's OK, but if they start to protest that it's right, well, that would be like this thread.

THINK about it people, who is more likely to be right, the dictionary or a demented journo hack? (no offense to demented journo hacks, Sax

)

Sax

12:25 / 06.11.03

The vast majority of the country trusts demented journalists with brain disease every day of the week so I don't see why anyone should have a problem with going with us on this one.

19:51 / 06.11.03

Google:

"You've got another thing coming" 3480 links

"You've got another think coming" 963 links
... almost all of which are complaining about how "thing" is wrong, hardly any actually using the phrase "another think coming" in context.

Google never lies damnit! All of you "think" people are just trying to cover your arses now!

grant

20:59 / 06.11.03

Hmm.

"If you think" "another thing coming" = 7,830
"If you think" "another thing coming" -judas = 7,420
"If you think" "another think coming" = 2,030

"I could care less" = 55,600
"I couldn't care less" = 47,700

Sax

05:59 / 07.11.03

It just goes to prove that you should never trust the populace to look after grammar.

Saveloy

09:55 / 07.11.03

Haus>

Ahhh, yes, that makes sense now, thanks for the explanation.

Re: dictionary vs. the journos

You should never trust American dictionaries, never. I did, once, and I regretted it almost immediately. Somebody in the office asked what the word was for things like N.A.T.O and I.C.I. and T.W.A.T. etc. So I looked up 'acronym' on the Webster online dic, and it confidently proclaimed that an acronym HAD TO MAKE A WORD. So I passed this info on, with a smug Oliver Hardy flapping of the tie, only to be corrected by the young office whippersnapper who quoted from an irrefutable British source that "an acronym does NOT have to make a word - this is a myth propagated by some AMERICAN DICTIONARIES."

So there you go. Case closed.

ibis the being

12:48 / 07.11.03

Saveloy, that's a bit of a misinterpretation of the dictionary definition of acronym. An acronym doesn't have to make a pre-existing word. A word is "formed," ie, is now a word by virtue of standing in for something. Eg, a WAC is a member of the Women's Army Corps. The word WAC doesn't mean anything else.

grant

13:47 / 07.11.03

Does UAE count as a word? Or IAEA?

I dunno.

By the way, one of the interesting things that turned up in that "I could care less" search was that the expression without the negative appears to have a Yiddish-English origin, in the same vein as "I should be so lucky."

Mystery Gypt

06:08 / 08.11.03

yeah, i always interpreted "i could care less" as being the much more sarcastically evolved version of "i couldn't care less," in that you could care less, but just don't care enough to bother caring less. whereas "i couldn't care less" is much too direct and specific to be truely apathetic.

just as long as no one here makes the absolutely unforgivable begs the question error. that one makes me want to throw the television out the window.

Not Here Still

15:45 / 08.11.03

The serious work of the Red Cross is undercut every time someone uses their acronym, at least for a childish mind like mine; ICRC? Oooh, it is a bit cold out, eh? Go and warm it by the fire.

What about fasting being a good idea?
Surely, if you think that, you've got another thin coming.

(Just be glad I didn't do the other joke...)

pointless and uncalled for

10:07 / 09.11.03

I think it stems from ennunciation deficiency if you axe me.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:34 / 09.11.03

I believe the according-to-Hoyle is that ICRC is not an acronym but a set of initials. NATO/Nato is an acronym, as the initials have been turned into a single word. So, UAE is not an acronym, unless pronounced "Weeee".

Char Aina

22:08 / 09.11.03

Now I think about it, I've never heard anyone say 'think' either.

i think that may be the point. try saying 'think coming' at all quickly, and the two sounds become one. this then lends itself to mishearing it as only one hard c. if there was no word 'thing', the whole mess would never have happened.

i'm pretty sure it makes more sense as 'think'.

i mean, 'you have another thing coming'? why not 'you have something else coming'? and thats not even getting into how boring a word 'thing' is...

Ganesh

11:17 / 10.11.03

If Terry Christian reckons a career in journalism is simply a case of scoffing lard pies, he's got another think coming.

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