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.'

Bated breath You did that on purpose!

I already did, Maid. see my third post. Feeling a bit silly now.

Although in fairness I can't think of any other situations where it's used to refer to a single thought on its own, which is where I think my knee jerk 'it's not a noun!' Response came from.

YY. 'Baited breath' sounds like you have a mouthful of maggots

Rack my brain.
Wrack and ruin.

(I had this post all ready to cut-and-paste to show that I know it's not "baited").

Yes, I was just being mischievous (not mischievious), as I know it's "bated" as in the sense of "abated", meaning "lowered" / "depressed", in the sense that you are barely breathing as you wait in anticipation. Apparently, "baited breath" made it past a proof-reader into one of the Harry Potter books.

Sorry Bugrit, should have read through!

Here's a legitimate use of "baited breath", for comic effect. (Geoffrey Taylor: Cruel, Clever Cat. Written in 1933 according to website I just googled).

Sally, having swallowed cheese
Directs down holes the scented breeze
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

You know, the more I think about the phrase in the context of how we usually use 'think' as a noun, the less it makes sense to say 'another think coming'. Since a 'think' is usually just a session of mulling things over, I could have another think and come to the exact same conclusion, whereas the whole point of the phrase is that something else is going to happen.

People saying that the sentence contains no 'thing'; well of course it does. The thing that you're expecting to happen is a thing. Just because you're not using the word 'thing' doesn't mean it's not a thng.

It makes no sense, people! I mean I know you're right and everything, but you're not right for the reasons that you say you are; 'thing' may be wrong, but it makes much more sense, and for some reason I am really fucking invested in having someone acknowledge this.

Come on, it's not too much to ask is it? I am saying that you're right, after all?

'Where I live in the North East people routinely say 'register' as 'red chester'. Also 'mortified' for angry, as in 'When DD stayed out late the other night I was mortified'. Also 'paletic' for drunk and 'brufen' for ibuprofen. I know some of these are dialectic'

Not sure what all these malapropisms have to do with philosophical debate between two opposing views trying to establish the truth through reasoned argument

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

All the lovely pedants on this thread need to see the Eggcorn Database. It collects words or phrases that are repeated wrong but still sound plausible, like 'to all intensive purposes'.

The rest of us are on tenterhooks, hoping to see a pacific example of correct useage

You know 'tenter' is correct though?

I'm with you Bugrit!

I'll accept that "think" is "right" in the sense that it was the original phrase, according to various sources (though I'm still a bit at our ancestors for thinking up such a crap phrase!) However in linguistics "right" is a moveable feast and often things do change according to mishearings and what makes the most sense, and I think "thing" makes the most sense which is why loads of people clearly use it.

Also what loads of people don't seem to get is that both can be "right", if both are widely used and accepted. It's like some people say "I couldn't care less" and others, especially in the US, say "I could care less" to mean the same thing. "I could care less" makes no sense to me at all, however it's in common use and means what it means.

I don't think it's a crap phrase at all. I think it's a marvellous phrase and clearly makes far more sense than 'thing'.

Cognitive dissonance the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs.

I believe I am right. I know I am wrong.

Cue: reams of retrospective justification.

I always hear "I could care less" in a very sarcastic tone.

I don't think it's a crap phrase at all. I think it's a marvellous phrase and clearly makes far more sense than 'thing'.

Why doesn't it make sense?

The main reason peope are saying 'thing' doesn't make sense, is apparently because there is no thing in the sentence! BUT THERE IS! The thing is the thing that you are expecting to happen. It doesn't happen so you have another thing coming.

The only way 'think' makes more sense is if you see it as a cutesy, clever phrase. Parsing the sentences logically 'thing' makes more sense.

I stress again that 'think' is right, and 'thing' is wrong, but it makes no sense to say 'thing' doesn't make any sense.

'Brufen' is actually a brand of ibuprofen, though, (I've seen bottles of them, monstrous big pink Smartie-sized pills that you need to keep away from small DCs at all costs ) so it's not so much a malapropism, more like when you say you're popping a Panadol or downing a Disprin.

No cognitive dissonance here at all, Maid. I'm not arguing that 'another thing coming' is right. I'm arguing that the reasons people say it's wrong are wrong.

What I'm confused by is how people can say there is no thing in a sentence like 'If you think that, think again.' It may be referred to only obliquely and the actual word 'thing' is not used, but it's there and it is the thing you are thinking is going to happen.

As far as I can see no one has actually responded to this point and it's driving me up the fricking wall.

Again, clearly overinvested.

Rack = stretch, torture.
Wrack = wreck.

Agree Brufen isn't a mistake. It's what nurses call it, it's what Ibuprofen was originally sold as.

YY Brufen is like saying calpol to mean children's paracetamol.

Burgrit don't worry, it has been discussed and people have agreed with exactly what you're saying!

Starky said:
You think one thing, but you have something else coming.

I said:
I think that explains why "thing" makes sense very well - there is "another" thing coming, because it's not the thing you thought would happen.

..."you think thing x will happen, but you've got another thing coming" (i.e. something different will happen).

(I agree with you it's weird that some people can't grasp that explanation though)

As far as I can see no one has actually responded to this point

Except yourself.

It may be referred to only obliquely

And thus, it makes more sense that the phrase, intended to be pithy, is internally logical, rather than requiring one to "rack" ones brains to come up with a potential explanation.

To wit: The only way 'think' makes more sense is if you see it as a cutesy, clever phrase

The "thing" in that sentence is the thing you think will happen, i.e. that you won't have to pay back the tenner. But that won't happen and another thing will!

But a belief is in itself a thing, CactusAnnie.

In your tenner example the thing is the event of the speaker having forgetten the tenner owed.