another thing, or think

[eub]

I ran across a Metafilter thread about the expression "if you think that, you've got another (think/thing) coming." If this is a familiar stock expression to you, which version is familiar, "thing" or "think"? Have you heard the other version?
(Warning: the thread is a mashup of this think/thing with an "is 0.999repeating = 1" debate; skim over unless that's something you enjoy.)

My dad and I agreed that it's a familiar expression, and we'd never heard anyone using the wrong word in it, that would sound bizarre, why is there even a thread about this. But it turned out we disagreed on which word is the right one. The usage in the wild is definitely mixed (it skews "thing" in Google web search, "think" in n-gram books search), and he and I apparently each inferred one correct usage, and assimilated the other one to it, without even noticing the mixedness. Yay language.

(Historically, the "think" version appears to have come first as a stock phrase, carrying a "comically unusual grammar" flavor. The "thing" probably came from rationalizing it, and a small phonetic step given that the doubled /k/ sound in "think coming" is commonly reduced. (The OED2 has an earlier cite for "thing", but since its publication they have pushed "think" earlier.))

Comments

[caladri.livejournal.com]

Let's debate the relative merits of different putative English plurals of "octopus"!

I only recall hearing "thing", but suspect that after saying this I will encounter dozens of cases in which "think" is used in things (thinks? — I don't know which is which anymore!) that I've read a bajillion times without noticing.

[eub.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested to hear if "think" starts showing up for you now.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

'think', definitely. It's not clear to me what 'thing' would mean.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

"Think"! The other one drives me up the wall!

Rationalizing how? Because "think" isn't normally a noun?

(I need another sentence pair. It's so I can use preiods to terminate both.)

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

It's obviously 'thing', you're just hearing the 'g c' as a 'k'.

JUST LIKE YOU DON'T HEAR THE CAPYBARA'S WINGS.

[katybeth]

Or rather, we don't enunciate the double 'k' sound, so it sounds like a single 'k'. :-)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

You have met me, yes? Why would you assume my knowledge of the phrase comes from hearing it spoken?

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

When you've read it has it always been the one way?

I think I would substitute it in my head for the one I thought was right/liked better and just assume the author/editor had made a mistake of some kind.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

In actual books it was always "think" until like five years ago.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

There was a pop/rock/metal song (I mean, clearly not the last word on this stuff) from when I was a kid with the chorus being 'You've got another thing coming'.

That was pretty much my major exposure to this phrase/debate until today, which may have been where I got my fixed ideas about 'thing' as correct and right and good.

[pielology.livejournal.com]

It's been used both ways in newspapers for nearly a century (cf. 1919 cite from http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004971.html), though perhaps not equally. But "think" outnumbers "thing" in pre-1960 Google Books by a couple orders of magnitude.

Huh.

[eub.livejournal.com]

That's what I think I must have been doing, since there are enough cites of "thing" from the kinds of thing I'd have read that I must have run into it without noticing that anybody didn't use "think". That's what I find cool about this, was not *actually* aiming to have people appalled at each other's wrongness.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Yes, discomfort with "think" as a noun: several of the MF comments are claiming "another think" is 'ungrammatical'.

I can't say confidently that I've ever heard "think" as noun outside this phrase and probably "have a smoke and a long think" which is a shade different in meaning: act of thinking rather than content of thought.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

"Think", and "thing" bothers me because it doesn't make any sense.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Never heard 'thing' till this. Strikes me as crazy illiterate, missing the point. Point is, "If you think X, you're wrong, so think again."

[ehk.livejournal.com]

I've only heard the "think" version.

[eub.livejournal.com]

OK so you and jinian are bothered hearers of both. Do you know if you've always heard the wrong one or if it showed up suddenly?

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm not sure I'd notice if I *heard* it, not being certain of what I'd heard. I have definitely read it, and talked with people about it. It doesn't seem like a recent invention in my world. 10-20 years I've been noticing? Internet time.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

My dad and I agreed that it's a familiar expression, and we'd never heard anyone using the wrong word in it, that would sound bizarre, why is there even a thread about this. But it turned out we disagreed on which word is the right one.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Just think/g, soon enough you'll get to have this debate with your OWN children :)

[beaq]

Eli, are you having this debate with your own children now?

[cellio]

Thing? Who knew? It's always been think to me.

[zzyzx-xyzzy.livejournal.com]

As far as which of two variants of a somewhat nonsensical idiom is "correct"... I could care less

[zzyzx-xyzzy.livejournal.com]

that should have been a top level comment. I'm always making that misclick.

[cellio]

Ah, I was wondering what I had said to prompt that. :-)

[rehana.livejournal.com]

Think is more familiar, and I've heard both, and they both bothered me because they didn't make sense.

[eub.livejournal.com]

If neither makes much sense, maybe that's what allows you to be a hearer-of-both-versions.

[hattifattener]

I've always heard (well, seen) "think", have only seen "thing" in casual internet usage and I consider "thing" to be wrongity wrong and nonsensical. The One True Idiom ("think") makes perfect sense— using "think" as a noun here is the kind of minor wordplay that, istm, is common in this kind of phrase— but the False Heretical Corruption ("thing") makes no sense. Why would you say "another thing" without a previous thing as a referent? Why would an 8-foot-tall Wookiee live on a planet of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? This does not make sense! You must acquit.

[blk]

Think. I don't know that I've ever heard the other, or if I have, I likely dismissed it automatically as being someone's ignorant confusion.