"another thing coming"

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:03 AM -0700 5/28/08, Brenda Lester wrote:
>FWIW: Remember Ricky Ricardo (Desi 
>Arnez) (I LOVE LUCY)  used to say 
>"thin" for thing?  We southerners say 
>"nothin'."
> 
>bl
> 
>


But when?  Do you say "That's another thin"?  For 
me (admittedly a non-southerner), there's a big 
difference between "nothing" (which can be 
[n^TIn] or [n^?n]) and "(another) thing" (which 
can never be [TIn], only [TIN]).  ("Another thin" 
can only be a request for a mint or some such.)
Is it different for (some) southerners? 
(Non-native speakers like Desi are another 
thin(g) completely.)

LH



>--- On Wed, 5/28/08, LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>From: LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: Re: "another thing coming"
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008, 1:14 AM
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail 
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      Re: "another thing coming"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>FWIW, I have heard some young speakers from Utah pronounce "ng" as
>[©Øg] (or [©Øg?], 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
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>> 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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