"thing/think" [was: on the eggcorn beat]

[sagehen]

on 5/1/08 12:43 PM, Joel S. Berson at Berson at ATT.NET wrote:

> At 5/1/2008 10:38 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>> Indeed. The playful use of "think" is even more evident in the fuller
>> version of the expression, "If you think X about Y, then you have
>> another think coming."
>
> This convinces me that "think" is correct and "thing" wrong ...but
> then again I was always a believer.
>
> For those who thing* it should be "another thing coming" -- I wonder
> whether there's a distinction between mental and physical activity,
> so that "if you [do something]" leads to "you have [something else]
> coming".  "If you come upside my head, you have another thing coming"?
>
> Amy West almost says this, but still has the antecedent verb as mental:
>> "if you think you're going to play with my models, you've got
>> another thing coming".
> I could not say that.
>
> Joel
>
> * noun verbing, of course.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
Which raises the question: what has been accomplished by "thinging" ?  Has
something been created from nothing?  (Useful to the entrepreneur who wants
to knock off a line of something!)
AM

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