Logomacy
Between logomachy and logomancy . . .

Here’s the result of a poll I took on one of the boards I frequent (a board for a group of City of Heroes players). Comments on the poll were disallowed, to try to prevent people from influencing each other’s views, though many eagerly shared their opinions with me via private message. It’s interesting how well this matches up to the 146,000 vs. 49, 300 Google Hits observed on Language Log.

You’ve got another X coming
Which sounds right? >You’ve got another thing coming [ 37 ] [78.72%] >You’ve got another think coming [ 8 ] [17.02%] >Both sound right to me [ 2 ] [4.26%]
Total Votes: 47

Language Log: Another thing coming

Google has 146,000 hits for “another thing coming”, most of which are not the Judas Priest song, vs. 49,300 for “another think coming”, which I’m pretty sure is the original expression. (Arnold Zwicky observed thing’s internet victory back in June of 2004 — though the totals were much smaller then, 21,400 to 5,830.)

This came up the other day in the car, when we were listening to the Judas Priest song, and it turns out that neither my fiancée nor my old college friend recall having ever even heard it as “you’ve got another think coming.” Moreover both were convinced, at least initially, that “another thing” just made more sense than “another think.”

I guess, though my accent is definitely rhotic (I pronounce the r’s as written) and completely lacks the intrusive r (idea(r), saw(r)) that makes someone sound like a Kennedy, something the quiz isn’t designed to pick up on.