My friend uses the wrong words...

[nickytwotimes]

My very good, kind and lovely friend uses the word "pacific" rather than the correct term "specific". My fellow pedants, what do I do? I have turned a blind eye (or deaf ear) to it thus far, but it drives me crazy. Another lovely friend responded to my ds saying "How do you do?" (he is 18 mths - very cute!) by saying "Very well thank you and how are you?"!

Am I going straight to hell for being so judgemental?

Now this is actually quite interesting and is getting to the heart of it at last, which is the question of whether, as you say, "the 'thing' is coming whether the person addressed thinks xyz or not." Depends, as I see it, how you define the "thing".

Take this example:

"If he thinks I'm doing the hoovering, he's got another thing coming"

What he thinks is Thing A - the expectation of hoovering.
What's actually going to happen is Thing B - the outcome of no hoovering.

In your interpretation, Thing B - not doing the hoovering - will be the outcome whatever he thinks. I can see that's not conditional on the thinking of A.

But what I take it to mean is a paraphrase of "if he thinks that, he's got a nasty surprise coming" - i.e. the surprise, the unexpected outcome, is the "thing". That's the thing he has coming to him. The thing is "another" because it's not the thing he first expected. It's not the fact that he has to think again - although he may have to - it's the fact that something different is going to be the result.

You can see I've been spending far too long thinking about this...

Right. I am going to solve this problem once and for all. It's definitely not 'thing' because I've never seen a 'thing' joke about it in Viz. Like:

this

or

this

or

this

or

this

I rest my case.

rip up the oed, botbot has provided conclusive proof

So in your interpretation, the other thing is a change of mind - another thought, or...think!

I agree that this just about works. Well enough in fact for the phrase to have mutated successfully from think to thing for the reasons discussed earlier in the thread.

Anyway, botbot's evidence trumps everything else.

www.babyheirlooms.com/product/thing_one_thing_two.cfm

Indeed.

Funnily enough, my dd had this when she was tiny. I wonder if they do them in adult sizes?

stopstopstop I've changed my mind.

"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'"

(Judas Priest(!), apparently)

Yes, but that was 1983. Think dates from 1938.

I've just come home and thought I'd have a little peek at this thread - imagine my surprise to find it in "last 15 minutes"!

Rosa is right of course. And Botbot (although Viz is notorious for the abuse of "disinterested").

You know what, I am really worried about how attached I've become to this thread. What the hell does it say about me? No, don't answer that.

Me too but I was trying not to think about it.

But really, there is nothing wrong with a little attention to detail.