"another thing coming"

[LanDi Liu]

FWIW, I have heard some young speakers from Utah pronounce "ng" as
[ŋg] (or [ŋg̕], and they were even aware of it and took it to be
"correct".

Randy

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 1:18 AM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "another thing coming"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 12:39 PM,  <ROSESKES at aol.com> wrote:
>> I did what you said, and understand what you meant.  However, when I say
>> "think coming" and "thing coming", they always sound different to me.  I can
>> imagine perhaps once hearing "thing coming" and thinking I'm hearing "think
>> coming," but not repeatedly thru'out my entire life.  It's a common
>> expression around here, and was even more so while I was growing up.  I'm
>> positive that what people around me have always said is, "You've got another
>> think coming."  Things may have been different in 1919; or (which I think is
>> more likely) the newspaper may have gotten it wrong.
>
> I agree, they are distinguishable. I slipped up and didn't say for you
> in layman's language what I said to Larry in technical terms. In
> "think coming" the first syllable is shorter, and there's a longer
> period of silence or near-silence before the beginning of the vowel in
> "com-". But the distinction is fairly subtle and may get lost in
> hurried speech or noisy environments or other less-than-ideal
> conditions, with the result that the grammatically unusual "another
> think coming" is heard as the grammatically ordinary "another thing
> coming". That is presumably how the "thing coming" version got
> started: with the speaker meaning and saying "think coming", and the
> hearer hearing it as "thing coming".
>
> Regards,
> m a m
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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