Doing-doing

[Patty]

This is hilarious!  I just went and confirmed with my kids - I have been
saying this for over 25 years, part of my vocabulary -- also say this to the
dog :)  To me, I now realize that it was short for 'What are you doing?
What are you doing?'   related to an active toddler and an intro from me
that I am about to join in the fun.  I say this now a lot with my terrier.

Regards,

Patty




----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2011 6:40 AM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Doing-doing


> At 9:14 AM -0500 1/4/11, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>At 11:10 AM +0000 1/4/11, Michael Quinion wrote:
>>>I've recently come across the odd duplicated phrase DOING DOING in
>>>American publications and would be grateful for any information about its
>>>ancecedents.
>>>
>>>"'What you are doing doing is penalizing the people that use the I-90
>>>corridor,' said Bellevue resident Bill Pott." -- Seattle Post
>>>Intelligencer, 8 Dec. 2010; "Edward Boffman picks up toys to go with some
>>>clothing while doing doing Christmas shopping for his two sons" -- The
>>>Virginian-Pilot 27 Dec. 2010.
>>>
>>>One or two might be mistakes but there are far too many for that. I've
>>>also encountered it as a noun ("He's going to take on the doing-doings in
>>>the US who believe their president is Kenyan-born, and therefore
>>>illegally
>>>elected."  -- Guardian, 1 Jan. 2011).
>>>
>>>--
>>Not that I'm familiar with either of these, but I suspect these are
>>entirely different.  The first is a reduplication of "doing",
>>although if it's not a typo by the printer or hesitation phenomenon
>>by the speaker, it's a new one on me; it doesn't fit the usual
>>pattern of "salad salad" or "like him like him" that has been
>>discussed in some detail in the literature, since inter alia there's
>>no implicit contrast here.  The second, on the other hand, I suspect
>>is a doubling of monosyllabic "doing" [with the diphthong of
>>"toying") that's less of a participle/gerund than an expressive.  I'd
>>guess that "doing-doing" is perhaps influenced by "boing-boing".
>>
>>LH
>>
> Silly of me not to have checked Nietzsche--besides the participles I
> take to be typos (in the first cases) or the nominal I take to be a
> nonce reduplication with the sense of 'idiot, loony' (in the second),
> there's this, from The Genealogy of Morals, which I read once 40
> years ago without retaining the "doing-doing" (maybe it was a
> different translation).  I suspect none of Michael's examples involve
> Nietzsche's sense, though.
> =============
>
> And just exactly as the people separate the lightning from its flash,
> and interpret the latter as a thing done, as the working of a subject
> which is called lightning, so also does the popular morality separate
> strength from the expression of strength, as though behind the strong
> man there existed some indifferent neutral substratum  which enjoyed
> a caprice and option  as to whether or not it should express
> strength. But there is no such substratum , there is no "being"
> behind doing, working, becoming; "the doer" is a mere appendage to
> the action. The action is everything. In point of fact, the people
> duplicate the doing, when they make the lightning lighten, that is a
> "doing-doing": they make the same phenomenon first a cause, and then,
> secondly, the effect of that cause.
>
> LH
>
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