Education, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

An Eggcorn?

16 Comments

Did Harry Reid commit one?

While I defer to no one in my disdain for our mentally challenged Majority Leader, this may be a little unfair. Unless he wrote it, how can one be sure that he said “…another thing coming,” rather than the (correct) “…another think coming”? I haven’t heard the audio, but how does the listener discern between the “k” sound at the end of “think” and the same consonant sound at the beginning of “coming”?

I discussed a similar problem previously, in speculating why aerospace engineers say “detail design” rather than (the more grammatically correct, in my opinion) “detailed design.” The “d” at the beginning of “design” masks the one at the end of detailed, and perhaps many just hear “detail design” and it has become an industry standard phrase (that I hate).

And yes, I was in fact previously unfamiliar with the concept of an eggcorn.

[Friday update]

Wow. I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe.

I have two commenters (one close to my age) who have never (or at least they think that they’ve never) heard the expression “…another think coming” and always heard (or said) “…another thing coming.” I am exactly the opposite. Until yesterday, I had never heard anyone say “…another thing coming,” whereas I’ve heard the expression from childhood with the word “think.” While it’s not grammatical (yes, “think” is a verb, not a noun), it’s colloquial, and it makes sense — “if you think that, you have another think coming.” Another “thing” coming makes no sense at all to me. “Another” implies that there was a first one, but what was the first “thing” being referred to? I’m pretty sure that it’s a confusion caused by the similar consonants that join the two words.

And while we’re on the subject, another one that I see on line all the time (and was very prevalent in Usenet) is “dribble” for drivel. Again, a case of mishearing the word.

16 thoughts on “An Eggcorn?”

  2. My mom once overheard someone talking about his elderly father having “Old Timer’s Disease” — and not as a joke but as an actual diagnosis as (appearently mis-) heard from a doctor.

  3. And I see from the “eggcorn” link that my initial thought of “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” oesn’t fit. That’s why it’s always good to click links.

  4. And I see from the “eggcorn” link that my initial thought of “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” oesn’t fit. That’s why it’s always good to click links.

    Indeed, that’s a mondegreen. Though my favorite mondegreen is still from the old TV show “Wings”, when Antonio Scarpacci (played by Tony Shalhoub) sang “My goat knows the bowling score, hallelujah”, until he was corrected by Helen that it was “Michael, row the boat ashore”. 🙂

  5. Until this very moment, I had lived my entire life having never seen the phrase “another think coming”. I had to re-read your post several times and then Google it to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, in fact. I suppose it may be a generational thing, but I’ve never even seen that in print, and I read a lot, every day.

    I suppose it’s a deliberately ungrammatical joke, but I grew up with it as “another thing coming” and I’ve never found a bit of incongruity in it.

    (Though if you’re looking for hilarious Democrat missteps, try searching YouTube for “500 million Americans”.)

  6. In retrospect, I notice you commented about Pelosi down the page. Serves me right for commenting without reading all the updates.

  8. In the post, you asked a good question about how to distinguish “thing coming” from “think coming”, given that the initial [k] soung in “coming” would seem to mask the difference. In English, we lengthen vowels before voiceless sounds. For example, the vowel sound in “bid” is longer than the vowel sound in “bit”. Sure, you can say “bid” really fast and make it the same length as “bit”, but it doesn’t sound natural.

    Likewise, “thing” is going to be pronounced with a slightly longer vowel sound than “think”. So even if the [k] sound in “coming” does cover up the difference between “think” and “thing” to some extent, you should still be able to distinguish between the two.

  9. The “thing” version has been in use far more regularly than “think”, which is more accurately described as “original” than “correct”.

    “Another thing coming” is semantically valid and makes sense – to claim it’s not “correct” because there was another phrase that it sounds like, and that it (probably) originated from in error won’t stand as a matter of English usage.

    Descriptively and semantically, the “thing” version is perfectly correct.

  10. Never in my 52 years have I heard or read the phrase “another think coming”. It has always been “another thing coming”, which makes perfect sense to me. I didn’t even know “think” was a noun! Sounds like poor usage to me. As far as I’m concerned, “another thing coming” is a legitimate phrase which implies that someone will suffer the consequences of their misbehavior.

  11. “Another think coming” is another way of saying “you need to think again.”

    “Another thing coming” makes no sense whatsoever in that context, and I really can’t think of a context where it would.

  13. If you expect something, isn’t that one thing? And if your reasoning is flawed, isn’t a different outcome (another thing) coming?

    Grammar aside, how does it make sense to say that if a person is wrong, he must have another “think” coming? That only makes sense if you believe everyone who needs another think has one coming. That clearly isn’t the case.

    For example, Mark Whittington obviously needs to have another think about space policy. Is there any evidence one is coming to him?

  14. For example, Mark Whittington obviously needs to have another think about space policy. Is there any evidence one is coming to him?

    I suppose the expression is optimistic, but it is nevertheless correct.

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