Has DH got another think coming or have I got another thing coming???

[NotMyRealName2015]

I’ll clarify

DH and I were having a light hearted debate about who was going to sort the garden out this afternoon (there are weeds growing out of weeds, and we have guests coming this week)
DH said that if I thought he was doing it today ‘I had another thing coming’.

I pointed out the phrase was ‘another think coming’ and that he should now go and do the garden as punishment for his failure.
However, he is insisting I am wrong and that ‘thing’ is the right word. I say that doesn’t even make sense! What ‘thing’ is coming?? He just says ‘English doesn’t always make sense.’ (Not technically his first language but he has a British parent so has always been bilingual and is completely fluent)

MN jury needed. Who is correct??
Loser will obviously be doing the garden. Winner will sit down with coffee and biscuits, looking smug and saying 'you've missed a bit.'

I have never heard or read "thing" being used in place of "think" in this context before this thread. Clearly I have been living on Mars.

Bangs head on desk.

Dh has just said it's thing. I've told him many of us are thinking of leaving our DH's because of it and all he could say was "where are you going to live then?"
I need to start a new thread - I've just threatened to LTB and he's agreed. What do I do now?

Tbh sell from my experience that's predictive text putting the space in automatically, they are just not bothering to backspace.

Tell him if he thinks you're going to LTB he's got another think coming.

Boom tish

Think makes absolutely no fucking sense and because of bloody mumsnet I now know DP is completely unreasonably wrong and thinks it think.

Well it's definitely a doggy dog world here on Mumsnet .

I still can't get over how all the comments in the beginning were wholly convinced that 'thing' is correct. But then I guess if you'd spent your life saying that you would think it's correct, wouldn't you.

It's still making me twitchy, though.

I wonder if all the thingers are the same people who say 'off his own back'. That one really bugs me.

"I still can't get over how all the comments in the beginning were wholly convinced that 'thing' is correct"

Me too! Utterly bewildering. I've only read the first page, so I guess I can assume that someone has already linked to the article by the Guardian's style editor that tackled this very issue?

I mean, "another thing coming" doesn't make any fucking sense.

I was brought up with "think".

Look, it's obvious. How could it be "another thing" if you haven't had a first thing? It's "another think" because you're already thinking one (wrong) thing.

As to the person who said it's a linguistic joke because it should be "thought", well, no. "Think" can be a noun as in, "Have a think about it". It's a slightly different shade of meaning - a thought is a single thing, whereas a think is a prolonged effort.

Definitely 'think'!!

NoArmani: "I wonder if all the thingers are the same people who say 'off his own back'. That one really bugs me."

Me too. But then yesterday I was reading a thread about whether it's OK to refer to "losing" someone as a way of saying they'd died, and some people kept writing "loosing". WHY? IS IT REALLY THAT DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOSING SOMETHING AND LOOSING IT?

hackmum I've been banging on about the relevance and importance of 'another' for a while.

Nobody cares

Apologies, CactusAnnie cared!

I am so glad DH is as much of a language pedant as I am.

It's think.

(Although I thought it was thing when I was young until I read the whole phrase in a book.)

I care, Maid! That was how I discovered it was think.

Another phrase I had wrong as a youngster was "read the riot act". I thought it was "at".

Maid: Well, you, CactusAnnie and I shall have to form our own little clique of people on Mumsnet who care about the English language.

I don't know why, but this subject enrages me for some reason. I think it's not that people get it wrong, but that they insist they're right even after people have explained to them over and over again why they're wrong.

May I join your clique, hackmum?

(Look, I even used "may I," not "can!")

Steady on! I think it's a bit harsh to judge those of us that thought the saying was 'you've got another thing coming' as being complete idiots in relation to use of the English language - or god forbid on a par with people who say Pacific when they mean specific!

I don't think I'm just speaking for myself in saying that I am fully aware of the meaning of the words think and thing, it just happens that I have grown up hearing 'you've got another thing coming' literally thousands of times! I'm happy to be re educated that the phrase should actually be think but am slightly baffled by the unpleasant turn this thread has taken!

It's think. Because you were thinking something and now you're going to have another think because you were WRONG.

I can't believe how many people have said thing.