S/O butt/buck. What are some old sayings...

: You've got another 'thing' / 'think' coming?
Having read the ENTIRE thread, here's my summary/opinion/interpretation of what people have been saying:

Currently, BOTH variants can and should be accepted, even when one is clearly WRONG. Please try to keep your cringing to a minimum when you hear the WRONG variant written or uttered in your presence. It's simply good manners, and there are enough WRONG people that they just might gang up on you. It's unknown what percentage of the world has it RIGHT and what percentage has it WRONG -- based on the number of people arguing both sides in this thread, it's probably closer to 50/50 than you think -- but you're sure almost everyone says it RIGHT, and only a few oddballs say it WRONG. There's a chance British English speakers are more "likely" to use think, whereas American English speakers are more likely to use "thing", but that could also be pure hogwash.

The "thinkists" and the "thingists" are usually convinced their way is correct. In most cases, they grew up hearing it their way all their lives, and often didn't even realize there was another way until later in life.
Most likely, they actually HAVE heard it said the wrong way, but they didn't realize it because the RIGHT way and the WRONG way often sound almost exactly alike, so their mind fills in the way they expect to hear it. The sound of "think coming" is a double hard kay sound between the words, and unless a person specifically enunciates both kay sounds, the "kay" of "think" gets lost, making it sound like "thing". Hence, a person saying "think coming" without overemphasizing the first kay will usually be heard by a thingist as "thing coming", and conversely "thing coming" will be heard as "think coming" by a thinkist with the missing kay mentally filled in. They won't even be aware of the difference. Note that in some dialects (i.e. with drawls), the difference can be obvious.

Both usages go back over a century. The earliest print mention of "think" was 1898, I think, versus the earliest print mention of "thing" appears slightly later, about 1906, making it appear "think" came first. That's not much of a time difference, though, less than a decade, and it could easily be people were already commonly using both variants around that time and "think" just randomly got the first mention.

Both variants are understood to have virtually the same meaning (your thought/belief is about to be changed by external forces/circumstances), though perhaps "thing" is seen as being more threatening, whereas "think" is more by way of warning. Might this be part of the reason a person sees it one way or the other, depending on in what context they first heard it -- i.e. a person who originally heard it from a parent who was threatening something heard it as a mysterious "thing" but someone who heard it more as a warning heard a more thoughtful "think?"


Bearing in mind BOTH variants can and should be accepted, even when one is clearly WRONG, here are arguments that have been given for why one is RIGHT and the other is WRONG. I'm sure I missed some good ones; these seem to be the strongest and/or the ones I can remember off the top of my head:

ThinGists - "If you think you're going to get away with it, you've got another THING coming!"
The second part is refering to a noun, which "thing" clearly is. "Think" is not, and even if it were it sounds weird and nobody uses it as a noun. [Counter: Think actually is a noun, even if not that commonly used as one. Please consult your local dictionary.]

The phrase is usually used as a threat, i.e. a Mother threatening a child. As such, an unnamed "thing" that is coming leaves a lot to the imagination and is much more powerful/terrible than "think". This is analogous to when a parent says "I'll give you to the count of three... one... two... " and never needs to get to the "three" because the child doesn't want to find out what unimaginable thing will happen at "three" and complies.[Counter: It has more to do with the tone of voice it's said as to whether it's threatening or not, rather than the specific word... believe me, "think" can be just as threatening as "thing" if shouted by a big angry person; maybe even more so if they enunciate both guttural hard KAY sounds. You might even get a face full of spit as a bonus!]

Although the phrase usually has "think" in the first part, we also hear it with other synonyms and similar words; the "thing" interpretation still makes sense in those cases, whereas the "think" thing crumbles.[Counter: The phrase is almost universally said with "think" in the first part, variations with other words are rare and are probably said only by people who totally missed the think/think duality to begin with.]

ThinKists - "If you think you're going to get away with it, you've got another THINK coming!"
The duality of THINK in the first part, coupled with THINK in the second part, makes this clever wordplay and is the whole reason the saying was memorable to begin with. [Counter: That was something someone got clever with later on and is beside the point. Plus, I sometimes hear it with other words instead of THINK in the first part, so that duality just isn't very important.]

The word "think" CAN be used as a noun, such as "I'm going to have to have a think about it," making it gramatically as correct as using "thing", but logically it makes more sense because it's saying that the "thinking" you used to have is about to change, because a new thought is about to hit you -- whether you want it to or not. The fact that a lot of people don't commonly hear "think" used as a noun doesn't make it any less of one. Dictionaries will confirm think's nounness. [Counter: It doesn't really matter if "technically" it is a noun, nobody uses it that way, it sounds weird, and hence "another think coming" sounds extra weird and ungrammatical.]

How can there be "another thing" coming, when there wasn't a first thing?! [Counter: That's what makes the coming thing extra scary, the ambiguity. You can think you know what it is, but it will be a whole other, and worse, thing than what you think. The first thing is implied.]

We understand why so many people say "thing" instead of "think" -- it's easy in normal use for the extra KAY sound to become lost. [Counter: There is no extra KAY sound, it sounds weird if you try to put it in, not to mention slowing down the delivery of the phrase with an unnecessary double KAY sound requiring a glottal stop in between.]
Currently, the earliest printed sample of the phrase supports "think" as being the origin. [Counter: "Thing" goes back almost as far. If the time difference were half a century or more, you'd have an argument. Less than a decade? Hah! You've got another thing coming!]

Arguments common to BOTH sides:
EVERYONE I KNOW SAYS IT LIKE I DO! Whoever says it the other way is a huge minority, they should get it RIGHT and stop being WRONG.
My way makes way more gramatical and analytical sense. The other way doesn't.