The Innovative Usage Thread

[linguoboy]

At last! A thread for those bits of linguistic creativity noteworthy enough to catch your attention but not really deserving of a post of their own.

Yesterday I overheard someone verb "cranny". As I recall, the utterance was "You can always find a nook where you can cranny down and study." (Context: a tour guide introducing the campus library.)

What y'all got?

[Travis B.]

I not infrequently catch myself (unintentionally) using we guys/us guys by analogy with you guys as a first person plural inclusive pronoun (with no implied gender, like you guys, which for me is genderless).

[Rui]

I've heard this from other people before (even people that are not where I'm from) so I'm not quite sure how widespread this is, but for times between 12am and 1am, I use "midnight ____" rather than "twelve ___". Ex: 12:30am is "midnight thirty" instead of "twelve thirty"

[TaylorS]

I have noticed that I use redundant pronouns a lot in my causal speech.

"Sarah, uh, she found the mop"
George and Ben, uh, they've left already."

I also tend to call female friends my "lady-friends" to avoid any implication of intimate relationships.

I not infrequently catch myself (unintentionally) using we guys/us guys by analogy with you guys as a first person plural inclusive pronoun (with no implied gender, like you guys, which for me is genderless).

Heh, I have used that construction occasionally, too.

[Yng]

I'm pretty sure I have 'like' as a topic marker, although whether this is particularly interesting considering how widespread it is I don't know.

Also, I have 'to be like' for 'said' when quoting speech but indirect quotes always take 'said'.

[Bristel]

I also tend to call female friends my "lady-friends" to avoid any implication of intimate relationships.

I call my "lady-friends" "girlfriends" if I'm sufficiently close enough to them.

[linguoboy]

I also tend to call female friends my "lady-friends" to avoid any implication of intimate relationships.

Which is ironic, because "lady friend" for me is an intimate partner of an age where it would be unseemly to use "girlfriend". I used to introduce my previous partner (twice my age at the time) as my "gentleman friend".

[Risla]

I've heard this from other people before (even people that are not where I'm from) so I'm not quite sure how widespread this is, but for times between 12am and 1am, I use "midnight ____" rather than "twelve ___". Ex: 12:30am is "midnight thirty" instead of "twelve thirty"

I do that. I've also got it with "noon," so 12:30pm is "noon thirty."

Also, I've caught myself using "an entire nother" before, and I've heard other people use it too.

[catberry]

Also, I've caught myself using "an entire nother" before, and I've heard other people use it too.

I use "nother" frequently too. Like how "a nadder" became "an adder", only in reverse.

[Whimemsz]

Also, I've caught myself using "an entire nother" before, and I've heard other people use it too.

I use "nother" frequently too. Like how "a nadder" became "an adder", only in reverse.

A non-reverse example is "nickname", formerly "ekename".

[Travis B.]

Also, I've caught myself using "an entire nother" before, and I've heard other people use it too.

I use "nother" frequently too. Like how "a nadder" became "an adder", only in reverse.

As do I in the phrase a whole nother, which seems to be quite common in North American English.

[derkins]

I use whole nother often myself.
I also have eachother as one word with a syllable split of /i.tSV.D@r/.
I don't know how common these uses are, but among my friends we say 'domed' for hit on the head, and 'heated' for pissed off.

[Radius Solis]

I have unselfconsciously used such phrasing as "a hundred nother fucking dollars" before. And I say unselfconsciously in that I was unaware I'd said anything interesting, until my listener balked. I don't think it was a speech error. I suspect I have quite a range of things I can stick between "a...nother", I may even have it as a productive pattern, but of course with self-analysis it's always difficult to be certain.

[Risla]

Also, I've caught myself using "an entire nother" before, and I've heard other people use it too.

I use "nother" frequently too. Like how "a nadder" became "an adder", only in reverse.

As do I in the phrase a whole nother, which seems to be quite common in North American English.

"Whole nother" is extremely well-attested and quite common in the speech of a lot of people. "Entire nother" is formed by analogy with it, and is not neeearly so common.

[Radius Solis]

Yesterday I overheard someone verb "cranny". As I recall, the utterance was "You can always find a nook where you can cranny down and study." (Context: a tour guide introducing the campus library.)

I wonder if someone might have been unfamiliar with the phrase and then mis-parsed it when first told that students could "find a nook and cranny" at the library, or something like that. That phrasing would have been intended as [V [NP and NP]], but the tour guide could have mistaken it for [[V NP] and [V]].

[Jipí]

I sometimes catch myself repeating the preposition again at the end of the PrepC. In German, that is.

[bulbaquil]

I will attest to using "whole 'nother" on a regular basis, but as far as I remember I haven't used any other infixes between "a...nother".

[Shm Jay]

I also tend to call female friends my "lady-friends" to avoid any implication of intimate relationships.

"My lady-friend" is someone you have sex with, especially if you are the Old Spice guy in the commercials. You don’t have "man-friends", do you? Just say "my friends".

[linguoboy]

Recently I've noticed my self using "manually" in cases where normal procedures are being overriden, regardless of the method by which this is achieved. For instance, my student was late swiping out today so I swiped her out "manually", i.e. I opened up the timekeeping programme and input her time out. If anything, swiping the card in the timeclock would seem a more "manual" activity than typing (although obviously both involve use of the hands).

[Rui]

Hm, I forgot one! I went through a time where I would unconsciously say "personally" to mean "in my opinion" or "I think."

"Personally, this game is awesome," for example. It's basically gone away by now, but I thought that was an interesting usage of the word.

[Travis B.]

Recently I've noticed my self using "manually" in cases where normal procedures are being overriden, regardless of the method by which this is achieved. For instance, my student was late swiping out today so I swiped her out "manually", i.e. I opened up the timekeeping programme and input her time out. If anything, swiping the card in the timeclock would seem a more "manual" activity than typing (although obviously both involve use of the hands).

This use of manual(ly) really seems to be quite normal to me in a present-day context, I should say.

[Chargone]

Also, I've caught myself using "an entire nother" before, and I've heard other people use it too.

I use "nother" frequently too. Like how "a nadder" became "an adder", only in reverse.

As do I in the phrase a whole nother, which seems to be quite common in North American English.

"Whole nother" is extremely well-attested and quite common in the speech of a lot of people. "Entire nother" is formed by analogy with it, and is not neeearly so common.

And, once again, I run into something that looks very odd to me because most people i encounter find it awkward so dodge it completely: ' a whole nother thing' or 'an whole other thing'? one sounds wrong and the other's just awkward.... so... 'a completely different thing' or, for less emphasis or a less formal tone 'a totally different thing'.

on a different note, I've heard fairly often, amongst people maybe five years older than myself, 'fully' used for agreement. someone says something like 'well, if you do that it would come out this way, wouldn't it?' or 'and then that leads you to this other thing, which is kind of cool' and you get the response 'oh, fully.'. I'm not really sure how to describe this one though. It's sort of 'i agree completely but feel no reason to be all excitable about it' or something <_< kind of like 'oh, sure' but without the implied 'but ...' or 'wow, i never realised that' (depending on tone)

[Astraios]

'a whole nother thing' or 'an whole other thing'? one sounds wrong and the other's just awkward

The second one sounds awkward because you should have "a".

[Chargone]

'a whole nother thing' or 'an whole other thing'? one sounds wrong and the other's just awkward

The second one sounds awkward because you should have "a".

*facepalms* that too. though even thus corrected it's still not exactly great.

[Astraios]

Agreed.

As for me, I say "a whole nother", but I don't think I parse it as separate words.