Two nation separated by a common language
This is the thread to discuss differences in language usage. Depite the title, it’s not restricted to US and UK usage.
I joined in an online conversation today, where a US author mentioned that their editor corrected ‘another thing coming’ to ‘another think coming’.
As a 50-something Brit I went for ‘think’. But talking to @Hugal who is also a 50-something Brit, I discovered he would opt for ‘thing’.
Thoughts?
(ETA title spelling, DT, passing crew)
I joined in an online conversation today, where a US author mentioned that their editor corrected ‘another thing coming’ to ‘another think coming’.
As a 50-something Brit I went for ‘think’. But talking to @Hugal who is also a 50-something Brit, I discovered he would opt for ‘thing’.
Thoughts?
(ETA title spelling, DT, passing crew)
Comments
Did you mean 'thought', or idea or did you mean another incident or circumstance - another 'thing'?
I'm a Londoner but I've lived in Southampton, Glasgow, Ipswich and Cardiff, by the way, so reasonably comprehensive experience!
'Thing' doesn’t seem to make any sense.
I don't think this is a UK/USA thing.
“If you think you’re going out dressed like that, you have another think coming, young lady!”
(Dr Seuss had a story about ‘The Gluck that got thunk’.
That, and the fact that "thing coming" and "think coming" are realised the same way, unless someone is careful to geminate the k sound in the middle.
It DOES make sense! For example:
"If you believe I'm going to back up such a stupid business plan with real money, you've got another thing coming!"
And that thing could be:
I wonder if the aparent UK preference for "think" is related to "have a think"? Sometimes one hears this in the U.S., but I think that it's widely understood as having come from "elsewhere."
Maybe in your part of the US. I’ve never heard “another thing coming” in all my 63 years in the American South. (In fact, I don’t think I’d encountered it at all until this thread.) It’s definitely “if you think . . . , you’ve got another think coming” here.
One nation separated by a common language?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/usage-another-think-coming-or-another-thing-coming
For real??!!! I've never heard it before.
My mom's side of the family is mostly from Arkansas, so we have quite a few words and idioms that came from there, but I've never heard this one before.
There are also differences throughout regions. I used to get calls for a while at the library from a man in rural Mississippi. We could hardly understand each other. But we both worked hard. Sometimes it came down to asking him to spell something. "The South" is not just "The South" and likewise, "The North" is not just "The North."
How about "Doorwall?" I've head that's a Michiganism. My aunt lived for years in FL and got all snooty about it's use. I stuck to my guns, though.
Indeed!
I’ve never heard “Doorwall.” What does it mean?
"Doorwall" apparently means a sliding door made of glass. Fairly common item, though I've never heard that particular phrase before. (I'm from western Canada.)
But they really don’t sound the same where I am. The way most people here speak, they’re distinct sounds—related but distinct and generally pretty easily differentiated.
My pet hate of the moment is 'uptick, a word where I would also use 'upturn',
Good point. Also the following /c/ could tend to devoice the /g/, assimilation, common in some dialects .
Thing and think in isolation are quite distinct. But with the word 'coming' immediately following both are likely to come out as
[θɪŋˈkʌmɪŋ], which could be either.
Just had this exact experience, except with two mutually bemused Canadians! Another anecdata to indicate that whatever divergence in understanding occurs does not seem to be Pond-related.
In choral music circles over here (the US) we casually refer to these as voiced and unvoiced consonant pairs:
G : K
Z : S
D : T
[etc.]
Not in Michigan.
In my example, the person expected an investment of cash. They were about to get something entirely different. They had another thing coming that was not what they had hoped for.
Yeah. "Doorwall" is a sliding glass door. If we feel really fancy, sometimes we will say the whole thing: sliding glass doorwall.
I guess it's to be CLEAR about the glass, rather than walking through the screen.
Come to think of it, we would never say: sliding screen doorwall. I guess the screen is too insubstantial to count as a "wall."
I have always said ‘another thing coming’ and assumed ‘think’ was plain wrong and a result of the mishearing of ‘thing’.
Interesting 🤔
My friend is American and lives in Germany - she speaks Italian, French, Spanish and German. She also speaks English - which she has learned and deliberately uses when visiting England or speaking to an English person.
If you think I'll sit around as the world goes by
You're thinkin' like a fool cause it's a case of do or die
Out there is a fortune waitin' to be had
You think I'll let it go you're mad
You've got another thing comin'
Full lyric found here.
Could you explain how they would differ, using IPA if possible.
In the original online conversation I referred to, opinions were similarly divided. The author said their character was an upper-class Brit among Americans, so the consensus was to use ‘think’. I suggested the controversy could be used to develop the characters, with them arguing over the usage. The author loved the suggestion!
'Another think coming' is a very common expression and I've heard it in South Wales, where I grew up, in Yorkshire, in Cheshire and other parts of the UK. It's used in the context that other posters have highlighted.
'If you think that boss of yours is going to willingly give everyone a pay rise, you've got another think coming!'
'If you think I'm going to overlook your scratching the car door just because you've apologised, you've got another think coming.'
I have never, ever heard 'another thing coming' but I could imagine it being used when the object isn't a thought or idea but something else, literally another 'thing.' Not this thing, but that thing.
I don't think it's a Pond thing at all.
On the divergence between US and UK English, I remember a fascinating series on BBC Radio 4 about the English language which suggested that given time, South African English, Indian English, West Indian or Caribbean English etc would morph into completely separate languages in the same way as Italian, Spanish and French diverged from Latin.
The differences between US and UK English tend to be idiomatic and we can generally work out what we each mean.
Incidentally, and I am not being cheeky or finding fault in any way here, but it's a funny thing but I find I can 'hear' various forms of US accent when I read posts by some US Shipmates. For instance, I 'feel' I know how @Lamb Chopped, @Kendel and @Gramps49 sound when they are talking.
@Nick Tamen often 'sounds' closer to UK usage to me and I imagine him with a mild 'Southern gent' type of accent.
I find myself wondering whether US (or Canadian and South African or Australian) Shipmates have a particular 'sound' in their imaginations when they read posts by British Shipmates.
I wonder how accurate our impressions are?
For instance, I 'feel' I have a pretty good idea how @KarlLB might sound in real life, as it were, as I am familiar with the part of the country he lives in.
Equally, I have some impression of how a Mid-Western US accent might differ from a Californian one, say or one of the Southern US accents, but certainly wouldn't claim pin-point accuracy.
A chap hearing me speak once nailed my birthplace within a radius of 9 miles. He was spot on.
As a thought experiment I'd be interested to hear how British Shipmates 'sound' to everyone else. Like King Charles? Like John Lennon? Like a band member from Spinal Tap?
Thank you, @Trudy . That was an interesting read. Like you, I had thought "thing" came first. I figured "think" was used more as a joke version of the phrase. But I am wrong.
Yeah, a "negative uptick" would be a downtick.
In both those sentences, I'd always use "thing" instead of the second "think".
Nor in North Carolina.
@KarlLB, I’m rusty on my IPA, and even more rusty on posting in it. I can just tell you that where I live, “think coming” doesn’t typically out as [θɪŋˈkʌmɪŋ]. It typically comes out as [θɪnkˈkʌmɪn], while “thing coming” typically comes out more [θɪ:ŋˈkʌmɪn]. The vowel in “thing” is longer than the vowel in “think.”
I hope I got that right.
Absolutely.
So, like this?
You and I are hanging around the Oktoberfest in Munich next fall, and you ask me where you could order a nice India Pale Ale. And I say:
@KarlLB and @Boogie I think this is a very good explanation. Maybe the key. I've been driving around making weird sounds all afternoon. I don't know that the International Phonetic Alphabet (?) would really help, because the sounds are so subtly different.
But for us who say "another [i[thing[/i] coming" maybe we don't hear "think" because it doesn't fit the established pattern that makes sense to us.
I think I say them differently, but really, you'd have to record me saying them, when I"m not thinking about how I'm saying them.
But I probably WOULD be thinking about how I"m saying "another think" because it would be a pattern error and be confusing to me.
But I've also noticed differences between those who learn by reading, and those who learn by sound, especially for uncommon words or constructs. "Mute point" rather than "moot point" is a common example of an uncommon word that I assume someone picked up by ear and associated with the closest word they knew. And these can be passed along to later generations who learn speech from their parents.
So, clearly, the suspect has another "thing" coming!
On the theme of transcribing what you hear rather than see written, I give you the English version of the menu in a French cafe offering 'smocked dust bread'.