[Vocabulary] think as a noun

[yuriya]

"So if you think you are being clever or original by trying to make me look foolish, then you've got another think coming!"

In the above sentence, I wonder why think is used as a noun there?
Thanks in advance!

 

[Raymott]

In the above sentence, I wonder why think is used as a noun there?
Thanks in advance!

Because it's a colloquial adaptation of the saying "You've got another thing coming" (apparently, according to many explanations on the web).

'Think' can be used as a noun, as in: "Let me have another think about it." In the case of the above sentence, the person thinks something, is wrong, and therefore has to think again. That is, the person has another think coming.

Many natives say 'somethink', "anythink', 'nothink', so that could have led to the saying in the first place. That is, it could have arisen from ignorance, or from an attempt to be cute.

http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&q="...er+think+coming"&gs_rfai=&fp=45e1d178f0748cec

http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&sou...aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=45e1d178f0748cec

 

[Jay Louise]

The phrase should be "then you've got another thing coming".

 

[emsr2d2]

The phrase should be "then you've got another thing coming".

Grammatically, probably, yes, but then it wouldn't make any sense. It means that the person thinks you should think about it again!

The phrase nearly always starts "If you think....", so logically it follows that the rest of the sentence will be about the "thinking" process.

If you think I'm ever going to date you, you can think again!
If you think I'm ever going to date you, you've got another think coming!

It's true that "think" is not a noun. The noun is "thought", but the phrase uses "think" and it has been the same as far back as I can remember!

We use it as a noun in another phrase that I just remembered.

Q - Where did you leave the car?
A - Hang on a minute, I'm just having a think about it.

 

[yuriya]

OK, I've just found an interesting forum on this. To make a long story short, there is a strong historical argument for "think". However, there also is a strong case for "thing" with a slightly different connotation.

You've got another thing coming? - WordReference Forums

 

[BobK]

There's also the usage coined by George Orwell for his novel 1984, which dealt with a world where Big Brother (looking remarkably like Stalin) had introduced a controlled language called Newspeak, in which (as in the case of 'Newspeak') nouns and verbs were largely interchangeable. 1984 was fiction, but quite a few words from Newspeak have been adopted into English (as 'Big Brother' itself has - in a TV program which has surveillance cameras everywhere [as they did in Airstrip 1]).

A characteristic cultivated by the Thought Police was 'doublethink' - the ability to hold two conflicting points of view at once; and hypocrites today (in the real world) are often accused of doublethink.

b

 

[TheParser]

In the above sentence, I wonder why think is used as a noun there?
Thanks in advance!

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Hello, Yuriya.

(1) Here is an amusing true story.

(2) As you know, there's the expression "Great minds THINK ALIKE."

(Intelligent people share the same thoughts)

(3) Well, The Economist (an excellent British newsweekly)

wanted people to read it. So it advertised itself with this rewording

of that expression:



Great minds LIKE A THINK



***** Thank you.