The Innovative Usage Thread

[Åge Kruger]

At work today, whilst eating lunch, we discussed the hot-dogs at IKEA. A colleague mentioned that he would often buy a ventepølse (waiting hot-dog) to eat at the bus-stop.

[schwhatever]

My brother, earlier this evening, was reading me something he had written, but stopped in the middle and said, "I missed write it" instead of "I mis-wrote it" (which is acceptable IMD at least).

The interesting part is how the prefix mis- being reinterpreted as the verb miss takes the past marking away from the original verb. I wouldn't have noticed this as innovative, except that "write" is glaringly non-past, when he was clearly talking about the past. Thinking about it now, "I missed wrote it" sounds entirely plausible to me, even though it somehow has two fully functioning verbs conjugated at the same time. Maybe that's phonetic intereference? Since /sr/* is disallowed (impossible?) in English, could it be that this is instead just an excuse for an epenthetic /t/ in between those?

*I know, I know, I'm being lazy and using /r/ for whatever the hell it really is. Sorry.

EDIT: Sorry, misused [] thingies.

[hwhatting]

"If you be a clown, I'll be a dog" is acceptable, for instance. But there's probably something there with the if.

Maybe it's actually "if you'll be.." with the contraction swallowed?

No, that means something different... i think... possibly...

something to do with volition or contempt but i can't quite put my finger on it so maybe it doesn't exist.

Isn't that simply a case of the present subjunctive after "if"?

[Yng]

That's a good point. 'If you be a clown, I'll be...' is acceptable to me as well. It may be a case of the present subjunctive, but I don't use that anywhere else after 'if'. Also, in what you might call 'compound verbs' with 'be', like 'be good', 'are' is the only acceptable option. Hmm.

[Zapcon]

The other day during jazz band rehearsal, the director was telling the wind instruments to tongue harder. He said: "make a <tee> [tʰiː] sound! not a <dah> [daː] sound!" i wanted to stand up and tell him that there really was nothing different between the two except for voicing of the consonant, and going to either a high or low vowel.

[finlay]

What's wrong with that? It's not 'linguistic', but that doesn't matter, it's a useful way of describing the desired sound quickly. And the two differences you detailed are very important, salient distinctions. If you're saying he wanted a lower note, da is actually a good way of describing that, next to ti, because the open vowels do create a lower pitch.

[Zapcon]

well he was going for a harder attack, not a lower note, so it didn't really make sense to me

[finlay]

da sounds more forceful to me... again I know it's not linguistic, but it's just a sort of mnemonic, almost, device for him to use.

[Nortaneous]

"not a place I would recommend getting your hair did"

I actually think I've heard this before but it's still fucking weird

[Radius Solis]

"not a place I would recommend getting your hair did"

I actually think I've heard this before but it's still fucking weird

Good old participle-preterite confusion! That's something I miss about my dad when he was alive, he had a broad range of relatively stable participle-preterite mixups, like "I last seen it in the laundry room" and "I've wrote it down" and, God help us all, occasionally he'd even come out with things like "the job is did".

(One time, on asking him about that one, he replied to the effect of "well just saying the job is done doesn't say that someone DID it, just that it got done." That mystified me at the time, but now I might speculate that he was avoiding any reading of "done" as just referring to state of completion rather than results of active effort. I don't know.)

[linguoboy]

"not a place I would recommend getting your hair did"

To me, what's "innovative" about this is how it's leapt sociolinguistic boundaries. If I'm not mistaken, it originated in AAVE. At least, that's the variety I most strongly identify it with. But among my (mostly middle-class white) gay friends, I now hear this more often than the variant with past participle. I'm assuming there was some pop culture reference that popularised it, but I couldn't tell you what it is.

[Magb]

I'm assuming there was some pop culture reference that popularised it, but I couldn't tell you what it is.

Possibly "Work It" by Missy Elliott (from 2002):

If you a fly girl
Then get your nails done
Get a pedicure
Get your hair did

At least I always think of that song when I encounter "get your X did", where X is usually "hair", but also "nails", "face", etc.

[dhok]

In writing an essay about anarchy, I portmanteaued "ban" and "vanquish" and created the word "banquish", which I am rather fond of.

[linguoboy]

In writing an essay about anarchy, I portmanteaued "ban" and "vanquish" and created the word "banquish", which I am rather fond of.

94,000+ hits on Google, including an UrbanDictionary entry.

[dhok]

In writing an essay about anarchy, I portmanteaued "ban" and "vanquish" and created the word "banquish", which I am rather fond of.

94,000+ hits on Google, including an UrbanDictionary entry.

Damn. I've never heard it before, though, so I get some credit.

[linguoboy]

Damn. I've never heard it before, though, so I get some credit.

"Ban" seems to attract more than its share of portmanteau wordsmithery: banhammer, baniate, bannination, banistan, banzored, etc.

[Bedelato]

"not a place I would recommend getting your hair did"

I actually think I've heard this before but it's still fucking weird

Good old participle-preterite confusion! That's something I miss about my dad when he was alive, he had a broad range of relatively stable participle-preterite mixups, like "I last seen it in the laundry room" and "I've wrote it down" and, God help us all, occasionally he'd even come out with things like "the job is did".

(One time, on asking him about that one, he replied to the effect of "well just saying the job is done doesn't say that someone DID it, just that it got done." That mystified me at the time, but now I might speculate that he was avoiding any reading of "done" as just referring to state of completion rather than results of active effort. I don't know.)

Yes, I'll agree that English has messed up its strong verbs beyond repair.

and, God help us all

For some reason I keep wanting to analyze the "help" in "God help us" as an imperative.
I read somewhere that it's actually a present subjunctive, but I could be wrong.

[linguoboy]

For some reason I keep wanting to analyze the "help" in "God help us" as an imperative.
I read somewhere that it's actually a present subjunctive, but I could be wrong.

It depends what your purpose is. Cf. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 01192.html.

[Ser]

Apparently "inscribir" is also intransitive in El Salvador, with the meaning "to register the next term's courses". Today I saw a bunch of "justo para inscribir se me fue el inter!", (just as I was going to register my courses the Internet went down!), "maje, ya inscribiste?" (dude, have you registered your courses already?), etc. from my old classmates.

In speaking of salaries "grand" is also used to mean "thousands of dollars per year", at least in the US of America.

'Grand' means 'thousand', particularly in monetary terms, here as well.

I've never heard it for anything but money.

Today at night I heard somebody bragging to me saying (well, typing over the chat) "I finally finished a couple grand of stars!" (regarding stars made origami-style to be used for decoration). And yes, she did mean 2000 of them.

"so that's how you procrastinate..."

[Nortaneous]

goddamnit, if i catch myself using the "_______, or?" construction in english one more fucking time...

[jmcd]

goddamnit, if i catch myself using the "_______, or?" construction in english one more fucking time...

Yeah I do that all the time. That bother you like, improving English?

[Nortaneous]

That bother you like, improving English?

Wait, is that a British thing? I've never seen that before, at least, and it sounds British for some reason.

[jmcd]

That bother you like, improving English?

Wait, is that a British thing? I've never seen that before, at least, and it sounds British for some reason.

I thought it's German. You definitely do have a construciton like that in German ", oder?". I mean over at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_question, they have "oder" listed but not "or". If it was a British thing I wouldn't think it positive.

[finlay]

I think of it as a german thing

[Yng]

Explain its usage. I think I might have something like it.