Talk:need it yesterday

RFM discussion: July 2010–August 2014
Move to need something yesterday. At COCA, "need it yesterday" came up twice, whereas other objects came up more than dozen times. DCDuring TALK 14:25, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As the original page creator, I have no objections. However, I just worked out what COCA is, and I'm not sure how one would search for "need [object] yesterday." Ackatsis 04:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * They have help information in the box on the lower right of their main screen. Click at the pull-down menu where is says "more information". That's how I learned that "[need] * yesterday", "[need] * * yesterday", etc can be used to find out how often one, two, and more other words intervene between forms of "need" and "yesterday", and what those words are. COCA, BNC, and the Time database are all accessible at BYU and useful for slightly different Wiktionary purposes. DCDuring TALK 11:11, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * want it done yesterday would be perfectly attestable (I think). Mglovesfun (talk) 11:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The essence of the possibly idiomatic construction is the juxtaposition of "yesterday" with a verb in the present tense, rather than any particular wording. This is an efficient way of expressing the idea that something is late and still wanted. "I needed it is yesterday" (or "I wanted it done yesterday.") is at best ambiguous as to whether or not today is too late and the task is no longer worth doing.
 * I don't know what widely used linguistic notation scheme would support this generalization. We don't support "constructions" except through the the use of "one", "someone", and "something", some grammatical context tags, alternative forms, and usage notes. I have created Category:English idiomatic construction prototypes for such entries in the belief that each construction might warrant an appendix listing the instances of the construction that we have and the general principles governing the formations of instances. DCDuring TALK 15:28, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Moved to need yesterday --Type56op9 (talk) 17:27, 18 August 2014 (UTC)