No, it wouldn’t be “wrong” as such, but it would be a non sequitur (in the second example, at any rate).
I am still amazed that those who always thought it was “thing” didn’t have a massive :smack: moment when they first heard it was “think”.
It’s like when I was younger (like very young - five or six) hearing what I thought was “I must’ve met, he’s not that bright” (for instance), and getting a big jolt of realisation when I realised it was “must admit”. Wow! NOW I understand!
How anyone can not “get it” after all the explanations on this thread really still stumps me. But … must … not … let … it … get … to … me …
On the plus side, Cicada and I have our fingers on the editorial pencils, so we can strike out this ignorance as and when we come across it in our line of work
Surely you’d leave it in a novel, say, where the character speaking the line is actually saying “another thing coming”? Especially if the character were from the Southern U.S., for example?
On the other hand, if I were writing an article for a British or Australian magazine, I’d appreciate your insight in this matter.
(Cripes … I have to appeal to authority again …)
What of those Merriam-Webster dictionary editors? 60% of them favored “another thing”, remember? You write off your peers with a wave of your hand? Come on … that is meaningful at some level.
BTW, exactly on what basis is “another think” correct? Having earlier citations is not enough, IMHO. If all that mattered is that one usage came earlier, then why do we accept, for example, the spelling of “shower” as s-h-o-w-e-r and not s-h-o-u-r-e, as it appears in The Canterbury Tales?
You are obviously an authority on the stylistic variations of the written English language, and also perhaps of public speech. However, that doesn’t confer upon you the power to decide what is correct or not in other contexts. You have no say in what goes on between various speakers and listeners across the English speaking world – where the living, breathing, and changing English language truly exists.
That last post was failry tongue-in-cheek. Regardless of my own personal views on the matter, I do accept that millions of people do use the “thing” version. Sure, it surprised me – having never heard that form before seeing a previous SDMB thread about it – and I really don’t like it, but then there’s lots of English usage that I don’t like. I’m not entirely prescriptivist in my approach to the language – as you say, we’d all be writing like Chaucer otherwise – and if a writer insisted on “thing” then I’d probably let it slide.
However, I am having trouble seeing the difference between allowing this and allowing, say, “should of”, which nobody seems to argue is acceptable. Based on what I read on the internet, it appears that “should of” is used at least as widely as “another thing coming”. At what point will this be deemed “correct usage” as well? Are editors doomed to be a dying breed as we casually accept the maxim that “If an English-speaker has written it, it must be proper English”?
[Disclaimer: I have not proofread this post. Gaudere’s Law may apply.]
Yep, Gaudere strikes right away. And I missed this:
I’ve explained why “another think” is correct (IMHO, of course…) until I was blue in the fingers. The whole idiom is obviously constructed around a verbal joke which some people seem to miss. It’s a deliberately “clever-clever” thing to say. I’d love to be able to find out who first said it, but I have a feeling that would be impossible to dig up.
The difference of what flies in spoken English and what flies in most written English is largely being overlooked, though it is of tantamount importance to this whole discussion.
People have been using the words “correct” and “incorrect” in this thread, when the question is actually a matter of style dependent on context, not one of chimerical “correctness”.
In most writing for mass consumption, “should of” will jar and distract the reader, whether they be American, English, Australian, Jamaican, Indian, etc. “Another thing coming”, on the other hand, will pass muster with a great many (esp. American) readers. Having said that, it is still a matter of style, not correctness. Choosing how to express a thought to an audience requires an understanding of that audience’s expectations. If one is expressing the though orally, many audiences will accept “should of”, making it “correct” in situ.
Editors will always be needed to be arbiters of style. Communicators will always need help in choosing the proper style of expression to best reach their audience.
But this explanation does not take into account the respective audiences hearing or reading the expression. Actually, the origin of the expression is pretty much irrelevant.
While I must agree that usage makes the final decision on correctness, I don’t have to like it.
I, of course, use the expression the One True Way: think.
Many people above and in the Pit thread have claimed that the thing version makes more sense than the version with think. I suppose it is technically more grammatical to use thing if you look at only that single clause, but that makes the whole sentence incoherent. The conditional (“If you think…”) is clearly about the thought, so the consequent should also be about thoughts ("another think) to maintain a parallel construction. Using thing in the consequent means you’re talking about objects (even if they’re abstract).
One reason I’ve always thought “think” to be incorrect is the context in which I’ve seen it written. I’ve usually seen it included in dialogue in fiction, and always coming from a character who appears to have a less than stellar command of the English language, or with a thick regional accent or dialect. For example, Superman’s friend Bibbo. Bibbo lives somewhere in Metropolis’ lower-income part of town, and if I recall correctly, he used to be a petty criminal. He also seems to be uneducated. So let’s imagine that Bibbo is confronting a group of thugs who believe they can take on Superman. Bibbo might say something like this:
“If youse punks thinks youse can take Sooperman, youse’s got anudder think comin’!”
Every time I have seen the “think” variant, it has been spoken by a similar type of character.
Somebody else mentioned “butt naked” vs. “butt naked”. That reminds me of the word “buttload”. For years, I assumed that “buttload” was just a more polite and slightly more amusing way of saying “shitload”. Then I found out that a “butt” is a sort of sled (sledge?) for hauling cargo. Hence, the driver of a fully-loaded butt would be hauling a buttload of stuff. So “buttload” means roughly the same thing as “truckload” or “trainload”.
Why? The first time I saw it in print I just assumed that in addition to ballsing up the phrase, the writer did so poorly in English class they didn’t know enough to use thought as a noun rather than think.
I like to think I am pretty well read, and I don’t think I have ever seen “another think coming” in print - the construction utterly grates on me. You’d have another thing coming if you thought I’d ever use the phrase.
“thing” makes just as much as much sense, as the full sentence has the more basic meaning of
"If you think , X, events in the future will provide more substantial or “obvious” information.
The thing will be the proof that is in the pudding, or the hatchling(s), or lack of, from the eggs.
Actually when the events provide more OBVIOUS information, then “Think” becomes absurd … the expression is used for very obvious events.
“If you think that bridge will hold that train, you have another think coming.” ?Think ? Really there’s not going to be much thinking about the collapsed bridge is there ? Well anyway the origins may be “think” but to cater for modern life, where things are more numerous than thinks… its changed.
True, but pedantic… the expressions don’t usually stick to grammar and preserving the “subject” so pedantically. The first thing is the idea that the person had thought, as its always “if thats what you THINK” (or guess.) … The second thing coming is then the actual event, perhaps the train bridge failure, or the court decision ,or the bank statement.
