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.'

Of course they are, catmilkman

Hahaha

'Announce' means 'pronounce', yes?

OH. Hackmum, that has just explained something to me.

I keep seeing people write "If I had of...." and being totally confused, wondering what on earth they've mistaken for that.

It must be "If I would have..." - shortened to "If I'd've". The Brit in them knows that somewhere in there should be "If I had" so interprets the "I'd" as I had, not I would, and then they do the old mishearing of 've as of. Therefore, if I would have becomes if I had of.

In British English we tend to use the past simple either for telling a sequential story (I saw him, I said hello and we chatted for a while and then...) or to ask a question about something which we already knew was on the case. So I'd never ask you "Did you see the new James Bond film?" if I had no idea whether you were a Bond fan. But if we'd spoken the week before and you'd expressed to me how interested you were in it, THEN I might ask in that way. Otherwise, we'd normally say "Have you seen the new Bond film?"

I have to disagree about may I have, though. It sounds old fashioned to my ears. Could I have is polite enough. Especially if you include please. I agree get is incorrect in BE.

It's not the difference between "may" and "could", surely, but the difference between "can" and "may"? Where "can" is wrong.

BertieBotts - I hadn't seen that particular construction ("If I had of...") but I think you must be right! Tenses in English are very peculiar.

catmilkman - I assume you are just having a bit of fun (writing "free" rather than "three"), but to quote this page again Language Log, the first example of "think" is from 1901, the first example of "thing" is from 1919, so according to you for 18 years, everyone was apparently doing it wrong until someone discovered the right way! (And OED says "thing" is a "misapprehension").

I am reminded that some time ago, I contributed "learning by rope" and "rope learning" to the Eggcorns forum, though I see it never made it to their database. (Apparently widely used in Australia and South Africa to mean "learning by rote" and "rote learning".) If you think it's rope learning, not rote learning, you've got another think coming .

Dum That might be a jumbling of 'learning the ropes' and 'learning by rote'?

Yes, MaidOfStars, that sounds plausible. Apparently, a popular eggcorn for "rote learning" is "route learning".

Well every day is a school day on MN.
I always thought it was thing.
Now I know I shall use it correctly.

hells - a thing-er who has read the thread and changed her mind - wow, you will be a like drops of cooling rain on some of the fevered brows on this thread!

I am now completely ed by 'learning by rope'.

DadDadDad - you keep talking about 'rage' and 'fevered brows' and 'getting upset': I'm sure it isn't meant to, but it comes over as a rather patronizing tone, as though you're enjoying the thought of posters being really rather crosser than they are, and I'm not sure why.

Agreed, SeekEvery.

Sorry - it was meant to be light-hearted. I just see the humour: you get lengthy, thoughtful discussion about the topic, then someone pops up 500 posts in with "It's definitely thing" then disappears again, leaving others talking about banging their head or chewing their arm off!

It just struck me as such a rare contrast for someone to come on and say they'd read the thread and changed their mind, it tickled me, and I tried to express that in an entertaining way.

I really take on board that it might be patronising - not my intention.

Oh yes - I was struck by the unusual tone of that post, too!

Please don't think I'm trying to make a personal attack or tell you how to post: I've just noticed a fair bit of this - clearly unintentional - hyperbole in posts about posters' opinions on this matter. Thanks for taking it on board.

I will make a confession: I do get some amusement from those who get very wound up about language errors - but it's not to mock those who take grammar and spelling seriously (I like to think I take it seriously too).

It's more about getting a bit of perspective on a tendency I see in myself too, that when someone's English is wrong, or they argue for a usage I can't agree with, that feeling of tension, almost of threat. Why do we feel that? Why do we think the world is going to end because another person has written "I would of told him..."? If you open a published book or a newspaper, these errors are rare (so we notice them when they do slip through), so I think it's one of those perception biases to feel no-one speaks proper English any more. I'm genuinely curious at the way people react, and wouldn't want to patronise those who feel differently from me.

Can I ask: Is it 'swap' or 'swop'?? I always spell it with an a but have increasingly seen it spelt with an o recently

'Swop' looks may shades of wrong to me but I believe both or correct.

Eeek!

'are' correct!

(wrong thread for a typo)

I always write swap. Swop doesn't look right.

This thread is blowing my mind.
Now I can use swop as well as swap.
The world is my oyster!

Umm - I was the one biting my own arm off (yes, it should have been chewing, I now remember!) at thing, and all I can say is, I accidentally missed out the self-mocking emoticon!

Swop is to Swap as Woz is to Was.