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?

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Blimey. I've never even heard of it being 'thing'.

Think!

dh's boss used to say pacific instead of specific. really wound us both us!

and I really hate when people say: wary instead of weary. like I am really wary as I was up all night. Why? what are you wary of?

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Definitely think
A jokey way of saying you will revise your opinion almost by force - that's why another 'think' is coming

I'd never heard of it being "think" until I was well into my 20s. It never even occurred to me. But then, I never imagined people could ever confuse their, there and they're either - it only dawned on me that they did when my secondary school English teacher did a lesson on it.

Earlier today I saw a posting which mentioned a women's refuse...

Nothing to do with rubbish - just a place of safety for women - the refuse, you know?

My nan keeps asking whether my dd is "scrawling" yet ... WTF is scrawling ??!

Just because you knew it one way round doesn't make you right, though, Unquiet. The people who confuse specific and pacific no doubt believe they are right, too. Poor deluded fools.

Sorry, got to weigh in on the "think" side. It's clear that the second half of the sentence relates back to the first half, no? Just because people are lazy and pronounce it as thing, doesn't make it right.

The OED gives a citation with "think" from 1937, and no evidence for "thing".

But it's not like specific and pacific at all. I never got those confused. Don't see how anyone ever could. The etymology of "pacific" is totally at odds with the way people use it, which should flag up instantly that it is incorrect. Same with there/their, "should of" and all other abominations.

I am a linguistic fascist. For me to be so sure it is "thing", I must have come across it innumerable times and never have come across "think". This is backed up by the fact that "think" makes no logical sense.

I will reiterate - I don't buy the idea of the two halves of the sentence reflecting each other. You can substitute the verb "think" for many others: hope, fear, believe, contend etc. You don't say "If you're hoping to confuse me you've got another hope coming."

OK, but you must appreciate that you being sure it's right, and never having heard it as think, doesn't amount to good evidence?

I feel exactly the same way about thing!

And you can't say that relating it to another expression is irrelevant, and then relate it back to your own "they've got something coming to them"!

OK, the background behind it (as noted before on this thread) is that it's a linguistic joke - it is not supposed to make perfect grammatical sense.

It works like this:

1. You thought about something, and came up with a conclusion.
2. That conclusion was wrong
3. You need to have another think, and come up with the right conclusion.

= You have another think coming, i.e. you will have to think again in the near future.

OK, I really should step away from this thread, but I say again, just because you are sure you are right doesn't make it true! You haven't provided any evidence, as opposed to other people who proved that "think" was in use as far back as the '30s.

I understand entirely where people are coming from with their explanation. I don't need it spelt out to me again. I just think it's wrong. To be honest, I won't believe the evidence (which I think is just cut'n'pasted off the Internet) without some sort of validation from the OED. Cue Victoria Coren?...

I think you'll find it's think, UnquietDad.

lol Vickie C.

OK, the OED citation for "another thing coming" is:

"to have another thing coming [arising from misapprehension of to have another think coming s.v. THINK n. 2b] = to have another think coming s.v. THINK n. "

Obviously I can't actually prove this to you, unless you have access to the OED too, but I think I will trust the OED, who have arguably done more research on this than any of us will ever do.

And now I will quietly step away from the thread, before I ruin a night's sleep thinking about this!

I know this serves me right for using sunbeds (OCCASIONALLY, OK??) but, when the receptionist asks me if I want a "stand up or a lay down?" I have, on occasion, opted for the former (which I don't want) because I can't bring myself to say "lay down" but don't want to sound pretentious by saying "lie-down, please."

lol clam! What a tightrope the socially considerate pedant must walk. It is a nice story.

Penny you are fab.
UQD must submit.

Clam that is hilarious. UQD I will never forget your made up Chaucer - you have a victory with that!

you want evidence UQD? I'll give you some.

It's true, Penny, you are rather fabulous with your Athens login and satisfying citations.

Can UnquietDad's cast-iron faith really withstand such evidence?

I don't think numbers of hits proves anything does it? You'd probably find in a few years time there were more for "anymore" than for "anymore". The latter is still wrong.

I'm surprised the current OED backs "think" - but what I meant in fact was for it to be investigated on a future series of "Balderdash and Piffle", because I fail to see how this has passed by a linguistic fascist like me. And it fails to take on board my examples with other verbs.

(There's a whole other argument to be had, of course, about "thing" and common usage, but it's not one I quite buy into with other expressions.)

sorry, I mean "any more" as opposed to "anymore"...