Michael,

I think you're right on several matters  and perhaps missed the mark a little on others.  

Phonetically, "thing coming" and "think coming" differ in a couple of ways, but the g/k contrast is not one of them.  The <g> is strictly an orthographic convention as part of our use of <ng> to represent the velar nasal /N/.  The /k/ of "coming" will be aspirated since it's initial in a stressed syllable, and so it will not be perceived readily as part of the syllable coda of the preceding word.  In "think coming" a couple of things may happen phonetically.  Syllable  final /k/ is often pronounced with a glottal stop, a general fact of syllable-final voiceless stops in English.  This will be perceived as an abrupt break before "coming" and also has the effect of lengthening the velar stop since the first word ends in one and the second begins in one.  This also is normal in English; consider "cap peak" or "mat texture."  If the pronunciation is "thing" instead, a shorter /k/ will be heard with no chance of a glottal stop.

I think rather the major factor is the oddity of "think" as a noun:  people will use "thing" instead because it is more obviously a noun and does make a sort of sense--might even be an eggcorn (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/).   In the expression, "If you think that, you've got another think coming," the nominal use of "think" is set up by the verb of the conditional and contributes to what must have originally been a witty expression. 

Herb

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of R. Michael Medley (ck)
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 9:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: think/thing

Without having reviewed any research specific to this question, it strikes me as a processing error for which psycholinguistics has a strong explanation.

When we are inserting phonemes in a word string, we sometimes make retrieval errors.  There are substitution errors, anticipation errors, reversal errors, and so on.  This particular error may provide some evidence that the phoneme /k/ and /g/ are stored in close proximity--or that similar strings of phonemes like /think/ and /thing/ are stored in close proximity, thus increasing the chance of mis-retrieval. For those who don't remember their phonology, the sounds /k/ and /g/ differ from each other only in the feature "voicing."

When retrieving the word /thing/ it is possible that other sounds in the environment condition our chances for retrieving the correct phoneme for the final sound.  In the saying provided by Herb, "You have another thing coming" you will note that immediately following "thing" is a word beginning with the related phoneme /k/ (coming).  Thus, the version "you have another think coming" can be analyzed as an anticipation error.  That is, in rapidly synthesizing this statement, we anticipate the /k/ of "coming" and replace /g/ with /k/.

As more than one other person noted, one of the lovable things about this listserv is the way people contribute answers to questions.  Thanks so much, John, for the information about listserv.  You helped to settle a question that has vexed me for some time.


R. Michael Medley, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Eastern Mennonite University

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/