There is a classic song by Judas Priest called "You've got another thing comin'." You wouldn't think that something as silly as an 80s hair-band song could spark controversy, but it did just that, during a friendly game of Rock Band.
What controversy, you ask? Whether the phrase is actually "You've got another think coming." My initial argument was that thing was in the song title, end of discussion. However Sherise's side of the family maintains that the correct phrase is "think." The rationale being that it is a parallel construction, something along the lines of "If that's what you think, you've got another think coming."
Nonsense, I say. Aside from the fact that I spent way too much time during my teen years in the pursuit of rock music and fast cars, I maintain that "thing" is correct.
Since pop culture won't definitively answer the question, I must regress to something much less exciting -- grammar. I use the following points to make my case, and invite any lurking English majors to wipe the french fry grease off their usage books and tell me where I may have gone wrong.
0. Diagramming (or dissecting) the sentence:
You (subject)
have got (verb)
another thing (direct object)
coming (complement or participle phrase)
1. Start with the premise that it is incorrect usage to use a noun to replace a verb. For example: "I'll e-mail you tomorrow." The correct usage is "I'll send you an e-mail tomorrow."
2. The corollary to this rule would be that it is incorrect to use a verb to replace a noun. In the case of the phrase in question, the object of the sentence (thing) should be a noun and not a verb. My understanding is that the object of a sentence must always be a noun or pronoun.
3. If we were talking about singing, one would say "You've got another song coming," not "You've got another sing coming." If one insists on using the parallel-construction-thinking argument, the correct usage would be "You've got another thought coming," not "You've got another think coming."
4. Last time I checked, think is not a noun.
I welcome your thoughts on this matter. Perhaps you can help settle this disagreement.
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No Pomp. All Circumstance.
3 years ago
10 comments:
OK, but the OED says that "think" is a noun as well as a verb. And in fact, it describes "you've got another thing coming" as "arisi[ing] from misapprehension of to have another think coming."
Interestingly, Google Fight finds 17.5 million instances of "another thing coming" and 21.9 million instances of "another think coming." Apparently it's a common misapprehension, although I'm sure the Judas Priest song skews the results significantly.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004971.html
Skipping to the summary, "it seems [...] the two versions of this expression have been more or less in sociological equilibrium since the beginning." So I suppose we should all just get along, regardless of how wrong some people are.
But I'm sure that we can all agree that someone who uses the phrase "for all intensive purposes" deserves to be mocked mercilessly.
Yes, or saying "supposably" or "mischievious".
And don't forget the perennial favorite "irregardless."
Can we just nip this discussion in the butt? I think you're walking on thin water here.
And can you explain that OED thing to me in Laman's terms?
Oh my heck! How can you not know what the flippin' OED is? You're so ignernt.
Wait, I thought ignernt meant rude.
Pauly, did you just say "oh my heck"????!! I don't even know you anymore.
uhhhh
I was originally going to for WTF, but this is a family blog, after all.
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