The Innovative Usage Thread

[Jipí]

A friend of mine used "mitflyern" today. He meant "to assist in dispensing flyers", cf. mithelfen "to assist".

[MisterBernie]

The verbalisation verbing of Flyer strikes me as much more innovative than prefixing it with mit-.
But a lovely example of how loans are integrated into German morphology \o/

[Jetboy]

I heard several people saying today, "When does class get over?" to mean "When does class end?"

[Bob Johnson]

I forgot which thread had the discussion about it, but I heard [ˈsɪ.lɪ.liː] (silly-ADV) in unforced context. Was something along the lines of "do something sillily fast".

[Jipí]

Wait — what'd you say otherwise? Comically fast? Silly fast?

[Bob Johnson]

Wait — what'd you say otherwise? Comically fast? Silly fast?

Me? "really", "amazingly", or "stupidly". Or maybe "so fast it's silly."

Also your "'d" expands to "did" for me in that context rather than the "would" you intend.

[dunomapuka]

I've been noticing myself using "which" as a topic marker a LOT. Everyone else does it too, of course.

Fake example (I can't remember a real one offhand):
"I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch, which, you can get a samosa for a dollar..."

Maybe it's not a topic marker so much as an introductory comment marker.

[----]

I, and many other people I know, do that a lot as well. I'm very surprised to find that people across the country do that too!
On second thought, it doesn't seem like that odd of a development.

[Radius Solis]

I've been noticing myself using "which" as a topic marker a LOT. Everyone else does it too, of course.

Fake example (I can't remember a real one offhand):
"I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch, which, you can get a samosa for a dollar..."

Maybe it's not a topic marker so much as an introductory comment marker.

That's... innovative. I personally am not familiar with it.

I think I see how it differs pragmatically from the version where the preposition is left intact ("I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch, at which you can get a samosa for a dollar") - in the version with the preposition, the second clause is just extra information and the main content of the communication is about where you went to lunch, while in your example, the first clause is just setting up context for telling your listener where they can get a samosa for a dollar.

Have I characterized that correctly?

And, can the two clauses be broken into separate sentences? ("I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch. Which, you can get a samosa there for a dollar.") If so, can the two sentences be separated by a third? ("I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch. You know, that one over on James street. Which, you can get a samosa there for a dollar.")

Also, are there any examples you can find or make up where the "which" does not clearly refer back to a particular noun phrase or pronoun within a previous clause/sentence?

Answers would be helpful in diagnosing the structure. Because that is not a normal topic-comment structure, by any means. It looks something like taking a noun that isn't the topic of its own clause but appending or subordinating an additional comment for which it is the topic. But it's hard to tell without more information.

[dunomapuka]

I think I see how it differs pragmatically from the version where the preposition is left intact ("I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch, at which you can get a samosa for a dollar") - in the version with the preposition, the second clause is just extra information and the main content of the communication is about where you went to lunch, while in your example, the first clause is just setting up context for telling your listener where they can get a samosa for a dollar.

Have I characterized that correctly?

No, the second part is basically an aside. Now you can continue on some random tangent: "I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch, which, you can get a samosa for a dollar, and I ran into Dan's sister..."

[And, can the two clauses be broken into separate sentences? ("I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch. Which, you can get a samosa there for a dollar.")

Yeah. The second sentence can even be a second person interjecting. (also remember that you can drop the "there" in the second sentence, which leaves even less apparent syntactic connection.)

If so, can the two sentences be separated by a third? ("I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch. You know, that one over on James street. Which, you can get a samosa there for a dollar.")

Indeed!

Also, are there any examples you can find or make up where the "which" does not clearly refer back to a particular noun phrase or pronoun within a previous clause/sentence?

That's kind of the kicker, and I'm not sure. Here's another fake example, but I ought to listen out for a real one:

"Topic/comment isn't something I know much about. Which, maybe I'd better read a book or something..."

[finlay]

Sounds like a relative clause to me – I'd use "where" in that position, though.

[Radius Solis]

Have I characterized that correctly?

No, the second part is basically an aside. Now you can continue on some random tangent: "I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch, which, you can get a samosa for a dollar, and I ran into Dan's sister..."

Ah, then I misunderstood.

If so, can the two sentences be separated by a third? ("I went down to that Pakistani deli for lunch. You know, that one over on James street. Which, you can get a samosa there for a dollar.")

Indeed!

This rules out relative clauses, even ones given only as afterthoughts, because it's an independent sentence.

Also, are there any examples you can find or make up where the "which" does not clearly refer back to a particular noun phrase or pronoun within a previous clause/sentence?

That's kind of the kicker, and I'm not sure. Here's another fake example, but I ought to listen out for a real one:

"Topic/comment isn't something I know much about. Which, maybe I'd better read a book or something..."

That would qualify. And English does allow topics to not participate grammatically in the comment, for example "As for the concert, I got stuck in traffic." Whereas it rarely allows a relative pronoun not to have some kind of head or antecedent, outside of certain cleft constructions, which have nothing to do with what we're looking at here.

Further, the fact the Pakistani deli can be referred to again with a "there" in the comment is also unlike a relative clause; it would have to be a resumptive pronoun, and that just doesn't feel like one (nor does it occur in the sort of place you'd expect to find one). So again, I think we can rule out the relative clause possibility.

Which, where does that leave us? It leaves us with a topic-comment structure in the second sentence, but for which the topic is a pronoun that refers back either to a referent in a previous sentence, that cannot be treated as less than the entire scene expressed by the previous sentence. So, the "which" does not mark a topic, or a comment. Rather it is the topic of the second sentence.

[----]

Man colloquial English is wacky.

[Chargone]

Man colloquial English is wacky.

and then some.

(... ... fear my content free sentence! fear it i say!)

[communistplot]

Man colloquial English is wackysexy.

Jussaying, and especially East Coast American, Britannic, South African and Oceanic varieties.

@duno

Have you lived in Brooklyn terribly long? :0

EDIT: Also I tend to find myself using Germanic words more so than their Latin derived counterparts, e.g. folk instead of people. This even extends to writing academic papers, whether this is innovative or not, who knows? I've noticed quite a bit of people though, mainly from poor/working class and minority backgrounds, doing the same. Also the use of though as a sentence ender (whatever the technical term for that is.)

[faiuwle]

Overheard at Thanksgiving in San Francisco (we do Thanksgiving on Wednesday, so that my aunt and my cousin can then have a second Thanksgiving with my cousin's mother-in-law the next day):
"Do you want that I should...?"
"Just the small of us" (= "Just the few of us.")
"Please make the dining room walk-through-able."

[Yng]

"Do you want that I should...?"
"Please make the dining room walk-through-able."

Neither of these are really innovative. The latter just looks a bit strange written down, the former is an age-old non-standardism.

[Chargone]

"Do you want that I should...?"
"Please make the dining room walk-through-able."

Neither of these are really innovative. The latter just looks a bit strange written down, the former is an age-old non-standardism.

ayup. weird hyphenated verb structure with 'able' tacked on the end is pretty common. in a lot of cases if you hunt around there's a more rarely used single word that the person couldn't think of at the time when speaking, so that is used in written form.

'in a state allowing the verb given to be performed' 'verb-able'. the verb in question just gets kinda strange sometimes due to fun with modifiers.

yay english!

[Astraios]

"Do you want that I should...?"

I have this most of the time in speech. It's usually just "You want I should" though.

[TomHChappell]

My kid sister hosted the Thanks-Giving Day dinner for six of us; herself and her husband, my brother and his daughter, my Mom and me.
In telling my niece about how she made it she mentioned "basalmic vinegar".
I pointed out she meant "balsamic".
She said she thought she had said "balsamic".
Everyone else told her she'd said "basalmic" but none of them misunderstood so only I felt the need to correct her.
My niece, who's 21 y/o and a bit of a "diachronophile" (if there is such a noun), hypothesized that, in another 21 years. "basalmic" will be a recognized synonym for or variation of "balsamic".

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

EDIT:
Earlier today my mother said "Used to Cheez Whiz came in a glass like this."
Not, "Cheez Whiz used to come in a glass like this."
Not, "(it) used to be (that) Cheez Whiz came in a glass like this."

[Bristel]

If I learn how to pick apart a person's pronunciations and grammatical usage, I'll try to study my mother's speech habits.

She's deaf/hard-of-hearing and has lived in many different places in her youth, like New York, Alaska and Washington State. She can speak fluent English but there may be a few idiosyncrasies that I may have never noticed due to her particular "accent" and also due to my closeness to her.

Mother might not make a good subject though, it would be too awkward.

[Bristel]

In other news, my father still says [ɛfɹɪt] to mean <effort>... And I don't know if he'd take correction for a simple word from an upstart whippersnapper like me.

[finlay]

My ex always says "ridiclious" for "ridiculous". I called him out on it several times.

I also have a friend who constantly uses "whether" instead of "whereas".

[Bob Johnson]

nukular

[linguoboy]

In other news, my father still says [ɛfɹɪt] to mean <effort>... And I don't know if he'd take correction for a simple word from an upstart whippersnapper like me.

My Dad occasionally confuses unstressed per- and pre-. I remember a conversation once where he was going on about the importance of framing, except he kept calling it "preception".