Talk:thing

additional discussion
Some additional discussion of the meaning and context (and capitalisation) of this term's "assembly" sense is here. - -sche (discuss) 07:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * See also Talk:Thing. - -sche (discuss) 16:25, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

euphemism
Isn't it a euphemistic term for "sex"? --Fsojic (talk) 23:59, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, but I think the page may have in sufficient quotes for "10. (slang) A penis." The only quote is: "Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing." Maybe it should be "pull out your thing", "his thing", or "your thing" (with a context). --NoToleranceForIntolerance (talk) 15:52, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

an improper Cantonese translation
was here for 12 years... —suzukaze (t・c) 10:05, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

(Redirected from one's thing)
What meaning applies to one's thing then? --Backinstadiums (talk) 01:03, 2 December 2019 (UTC)


 * #14: "(informal) That which is favoured; personal preference. (Used in possessive constructions.)" Equinox ◑ 01:07, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

littlest thing
With regard to the usage note in little, is littlest thing idiomatic? --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:52, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

put things right
Is put things right an idiom? --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:56, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

no such thing
On the contrary, certainly not: ''You thought I was quitting? No such thing!'' --Backinstadiums (talk) 10:16, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I wasn't familiar with that idiom. I scrolled through about 10 pages of 19th century google books results for "No such thing", but I couldn't find any instances of this idiom, presumably because the more straightforward use ("there's no such thing as an honest politician") is so much more common. Since it allows more precise search syntax (including punctuation), I tried using the Corpus of Historical American English and searching for "no such thing !" and "no such thing .", and found a number of results that seem to match the "on the contrary" sense. It seems like it's dated or maybe even obsolete. The latest instance I found was from 1982 (the corpus has data from 1810-2009 and is, I believe, balanced to have the same amount of data for each year), but going back to the 19th century it appears fairly frequently. Here's a selection of some of the latest and earliest quotes I found:
 * I did find some later quotes that had "No such thing." as a standalone sentence, but they were in contexts like "Coincidence? No such thing." where the "No such thing" has the more basic meaning of "[there's] no such thing [as a coincidence]".
 * It occurs to me that there's a similarity in form and meaning with no such luck, which I'm surprised we don't have an entry for. Colin M (talk) 20:43, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and created no such thing with the quotes above. (And also no such luck). Colin M (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I did find some later quotes that had "No such thing." as a standalone sentence, but they were in contexts like "Coincidence? No such thing." where the "No such thing" has the more basic meaning of "[there's] no such thing [as a coincidence]".
 * It occurs to me that there's a similarity in form and meaning with no such luck, which I'm surprised we don't have an entry for. Colin M (talk) 20:43, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and created no such thing with the quotes above. (And also no such luck). Colin M (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me that there's a similarity in form and meaning with no such luck, which I'm surprised we don't have an entry for. Colin M (talk) 20:43, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and created no such thing with the quotes above. (And also no such luck). Colin M (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

whole thing
A complicated situation; something that causes a dispute. --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:58, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

things [plural] (formal) (followed by an adjective) all that can be described in a particular way
She loves all things Japanese. --Backinstadiums (talk) 08:39, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

wrong thing
(jargon) A design, action, or decision that is clearly incorrect or inappropriate. Often capitalised; always emphasised in speech as if capitalised. The opposite of the Right Thing; more generally, anything that is not the Right Thing. In cases where "the good is the enemy of the best", the merely good - although good - is nevertheless the Wrong Thing. "In C, the default is for module-level declarations to be visible everywhere, rather than just within the module. This is clearly the Wrong Thing." https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/wrong+thing --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:41, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

the other thing ⇒ an unexpressed alternative
The other thing ⇒ an unexpressed alternative --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:13, 25 June 2021 (UTC)