OK, so recently on these hallowed pages we’ve heard people insisting that “mute point” (for moot point) and “another thing coming” for “another think coming”, are correct. Both easily proved wrong with less than 30 seconds of thumbing through a big sheaf of bound and printed paper, between hard covers, known as – have you ever heard of one of these? – a dictionary! Dictionaries are great - they tell you how words are spelt*, and what they mean, too, so you can be sure you’re using the right one! Even better, they often also tell you about the origin of the words.
And still people argue until they’re blue in the face, when their ignorance could be remedied so easily. Of course, even if you did shove the dictionary entry in their face, they’d probably argue that they know better than professional lexicographers :rolleyes:
Perhaps “another think coming” is the original/correct version of that phrase, but I consider it WAY stupider sounding than “another thing coming”. Another thing coming actually has meaning as a phrase. “Look, there’s another thing coming down the mountainside.”
WTF does “another think coming” mean? If you don’t mind my saying, I don’t believe I have ever used either of the 2 word combinations there for any purpose. “Another think”… nope “think coming”… nope. It all sounds pretty stupid to me. Perhaps I have this thing against the noun version of the word, just like I’m not a big fan of the verb version of some nouns… Let’s solution this. :smack:
Oh, and anyone who has a “mute point” about something should just keep quiet about it. HA!
Dictionaries and other references can’t really dictate usage. The best any reference can hope for is to accurately describe what is actually being spoken/written.
That’s the whole point, Cheesy. It’s a “joke”. The full phrase is “If you think , then you’ve got another think coming.” For example “If you think I’m going to give you half my cheesesteak, you’ve got another think coming”.
It astounds me how many people don’t get this. You are currently thinking one thing, and you will soon have to have another thought. But “If you think that, you’ve got another thought coming” doesn’t have the right ring, so instead the word “think” is instead, as I believe the language gurus would say, humorously reduplicated
It’s like saying “Who’da thunk it?” - you know, a little wordplay.
Colophone … the consensus of usage actually does know more than professional lexicographers. No one can impose correct usage by fiat. What’s used and understood in a given setting is what’s correct.
Sorry for the double post, but in reply to this - sure, usage changes, but dictionaries can tell you what the original (and therefore, arguably, more correct) phrase is. Just 'cos a few people mishear a word and use another similar word in its place, that doesn’t make it correct.
(Guess who’s getting a reputation for being a pedant )
I’ve always heard this phrase as “another thing coming.”
“Another think” just sounds so wrong. No offense, but I think it sounds stupid, like using “mute point” for “moot point.”
I have never, ever IRL heard some one use that phrase (‘think’ rather than ‘thing’). Ever. I’ve lived in the Midwest, Florida and Maryland. I’ve heard “mute point” but never “another think.”
Yeah, I’m with you. Just WTF does “another think coming” mean? It’s not right. It wasn’t till I started reading this very MB that I realized some people wanted the phrase to be “another think coming.” As I said above, I’ve never heard anyone use the word “think” in place of “thing” in that phrase. I was amazed by the grammar threads arguing over its use, because I had never in my life heard of anyone saying “You’ve got another think coming” in place of “another thing coming.”
Read my post #5 above. It is at least as “right” as “another thing” and is in fact the original phrase. As I said above, it’s a play on words. Using “another thing coming” makes no sense, as it loses the inherent humour in the phrase.
But, sadly, it seems to have been forgotten on the western side of the Atlantic, at least, which is fine. Language evolves.
But, in the UK, at least, “another think coming” is perfectly cromulent. A search of the database of all main UK newspapers from Jan 2001 to the present – a more reliable source than Google, I’d hazard a guess – yields 169 instances of the phrase, including:
I have no doubt that people use the phrase, or that it was the initial version of the phrase. The original seems to mean if you think this… think again. That’s fine and lovely, but it depends on using the word think as a noun. I don’t use think as a noun, it sounds stilted and wrong, which is why the phrase sounds wrong to me. Outside of this singular phrase, where else do people use think as a noun? (note, this is a rhetorical question, even if someone somewhere says “I’m gonna give this a think”, I don’t care, it will continue to sound weird to me)
Using thing changes the meaning of the phrase from “think again” to more of a threat of a mysterious thing that will be coming if you do the unwanted act. It’s still a perfectly good phrase, it just doesn’t mean what YOU want it to mean, but it means exactly what I want it to mean.
Another person (forty eight years old) who has been using “another thing coming” all of her life, and has never encountered “another think coming” until this very thread (I must have missed the first one).
“Another think” may have been the origin, Colophon, but I think “another thing” has passed into common usage - probably more common than the original at this point. I think you must accept that. “Mute point,” however, is an offense against God.
To to clarify One and Only Wanderers point, (and I think to some extent Colophon’s), are we only talking about “another think coming” in the context of ‘If you think X then…’?
Because if we are (and as a UK’er I’ve only heard it in that context, as highlighted by Colophon’s newpaper excerpts), then Cheesesteak’s rationale of ‘thing coming’:
makes even less sense, e.g.
If you think I’m buying you another pint, there’s another thing coming down the mountainside
I think we have stumbled across the ultimate issue to divide the SDMB - better even than that “damn fool war” thing. This seems to be one of those articles of faith… just about everyone has a strong opinion, depending on which version they grew up with. Curious
What I like about it is that each side believes the other side must have some sort of brain damage to think their usage is sensible. Sort of like politics.
The “thing” usage in no way implies a mountainside. That’s just a bad example.
If you think that the thing is that I’m buying you another pint, then the thing you are thinking is not the thing that you will be getting.
Thing, in this sense, being an occurrence of something other than the occurrence of the thing you are expecting. No mountainside needed.
Veering ever so slighly off topic, we often hear, on this board, something like “Language isn’t meant to be exact. It’s to convey ideas, not follow a bunch of silly rules.” Ever notice that people who say this are usually horrible at conveying ideas?
Mark me down as another one who’s never heard anyone say “Another think coming.” Maybe that’s the original phrase (although I’d be curious to see a cite for that), but to my memory no one has ever spoken it in my presence.
I’ve also never devoted much thought before to parsing the phrase “If you think X, then you’ve got another thing coming”, but doing so just now I think the intended meaning is roughly “You may believe or expect X, but that is not what is really going to happen. What is really going to happen is something else.” Something else = another thing. As Cheesesteak mentioned, there may be the hint of a threat: “If you think I’m going to buy you a beer, you’ve got another thing coming [like a punch in the face].”
And on preview I see that **tdn[/b[ has just posted much the same thing, but I’m hitting “Submit Message” anyway.
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