So last night I had this dream where I was talking to Victor about thungs and he was like, “Wtf is a ‘thung’?” and I was like, “Duh. “Thung” is the past-tense of ‘thing’. Obviously.” And in my dream Victor was like, “No, that is not a word” and then when I woke up I was still mad at Victor and I was like, “Victor, you were so dumb in my dream” and he was like, “Dream me was fucking right. ‘Thung’ is not a word” and I looked it up and he’s right and now I’m even more irrationally angry at dream Victor, real Victor and the dictionary.
PS. Victor tried to explain that verbs can be past-tense but not nouns but what about things you used to own in the past but don’t anymore? Those things should be thungs. Then Victor looked at me like I’d lost my mind and I was like, “I’M NOT CRAZY. THIS SHOULD BE A THING” and he was like, “Do you mean ‘a thung’?” and I’m not sure if he’s trying to be sarcastic or supportive, but either way, it’s not helping.
Raindrips on Rosses and Whiskas on Kittans, Bright Copper Whisky and Non-Animal Mittans…
These ARR A FYEW of My Favorite Thungs
Just remember, murder is still against the law in Texas, even if you can taxidermy the shit out of what’s left………just kidding, I love you both.
Waiting for the day when Victor’s resistance to cool new grammar becomes a thung…
Gotta give him props – that was an awesome come back!
I’m with Victor!
Past tense nouns should definitely be a thing (and also theng – future tense). Look how much more efficient it is to call someone a boyfrund than “that guy I used to date” or even “ex-boyfriend.” Team noun tense!
i have too many things yet still miss some thungs.
some thungs more than others.
[sounds rite 2 me :-)]
Thing, thang, thung. That’s the way we roll:-)
Isn’t it funny how we get moody about thungs that happen in our dreams even when we wake up? My husband won’t let me tell him my dreams or nightmares anymore when I wake up because he finds them so disturbing.
I tell him he’s lucky they’re just dreams, lol….
Sorry, as an editor, I gotta side with Victor on this one. Nouns have no past tense. If they did, people who have died would have a past tense, which just makes it sound like they needed more massages and wine in their lives while they were alive. Oh wait… Hmm.
This happens so often in our house that my husband has mandated a policy stating the other person can’t be held liable for what happens in dreams.
I still think he’s wrong on that.
I dreamt last night that Sha Na Na was at the federal courthouse in Philly and was suing my (not real) company for defamation of character because I blamed them for…something. Yes, they were all wearing the gold lamé outfits. I also may have defaced a dictionary.
I thought “thung” was the plural of thong.
Thungs? Works for me. Language evolves. Why not give it a little help?
Past tense nouns would make life much less confusing. “I lost a thing” indicates that the thing is still currently relevant, and therefore must be found. “I lost a thung” makes plain that the thung is of the past and can remain lost. I do not understand Victor’s objection to this. Clearly, the man does not appreciate language.
Shakespeare made up his own words so I don’t see why you can’t. You do you Jenny!!
okay, I enjoy the concept, though it sounds like a double plus good slope toward newspeak, just throwing it out there
Don’t let the Language Police trample your rights to invent/re-purpose/modify current words. The Roman Language Police did that and look where Latin ended up!
There should be more specific thungs. Like when you just ate an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s, the empty carton should be an “unce cream.”
Soooo you’ll be happy to know that in Czech, the nouns also get to change depending on how they’re used in the sentence, so you were just thinking in Czech. 😉
Past tense of Jenny is Junny?
Tell Victor the future tense is definitely “thang” 😃
To commenter 13, yelodoggie, the plural of thong is obviously thongi. Oh wait. Possibly thongae.
I love these little glimpses into your life, like this is the sort of thing a lot of people would never consider posting because maybe it’s small and insignificant to them, but you’ve made a freaking career out of these little moments and it’s awesome. (I hope that made sense, not really braining too well today.)
While I can see this as being a good idea on concept, the me that still can’t get my mind around switching verb tenses in Spanish thinks it’s probably better to not make American English even more complicated than it already is…
I mean, I’m not aware of a specific language that does this, but many languages do have grammatical case systems. Finish has a stupid amount of cases (15?), one of them has to be temporal. English is way behing the times. Excellent thinking, Jenny. Thung is a thing now.
I lost this battle years ago over “dust”. As in, “I dusted him” = I was so fast that guy behind me was left in a cloud of my dust raised when I passed him. You know, the opposite of “I dusted that lampshade.”
So. Say we verb “thing” and give it the same grammar rules as “sing. It’s only fair. Thinging sounds like it would be fun, actually.
Let’s thing something together. (Would that be a thing-a-long?)
Afterwards, I can tell people I thang a thing.
A thing was thung.
Well, it’s totally a thung now!
My daughter insists that dranken is the passive voice of drank. She hacked into an online grammar app and made up a believable definition. She was 18 at the time.
She’s 33 now and still uses the word.
I’m usually behind you 1000%. But it turns out not in this case.. so I guess 999.9% now. Hilarious that dream you also makes up words though.
Okay but on second thought, I can get behind Suzanne’s use of past tense nouns.
As we* agreed at a book signing a few years ago, Victor is always right.
*Victor and I. What?
I have had a few dreams that left behind an unsettled feeling of anger with my husband. Sometimes for a few days. You are right. Thung should be a thing.
One of the reasons I couldn’t get past the toddler level of Russian was that they conjugate nouns. It’s no wonder all the best chess players are Russian, just learning to say, “Good Morning,” is practically impossible.
Too funny!
@Julia, native English speaker here, I lived in Finland in high school and had to learn Swedish IN FINNISH! You are correct about the cases in Finnish. There are no prepositions but instead you conjugate the noun.
@ Jenny, Having lived in the land of crazy noun conjugation and failed at learning enough of the language to do anything complicated, I have to side with Victor on this one. English is hard enough as it is. I don’t need more arguments with spellcheck.
There are too many tense struggles with verbs to add nouns into the mix. Also writers and English teachers automatically get the right to make words up as needed.
https://possumscatsthingsgnawingatme.wordpress.com/2021/03/03/my-sexiest-pandemic-sweatpants/
My husband and I made up the past, present perfect progressive uncertain text on a long sleep-deprived journey because what if you want to talk about someone who you knew but haven’t seen in a long time and you’re not sure they’re still alive. Instead of saying, “He WAS a nice guy,” you say, “He WIZ” which is a beautiful combo of was and is. There.
It should be a thing, not a thung, because you are taking about present and future tense, whereas everyone knows thung is past tense. So here Victor was 100% wrong (or would that be wring?)
I was once on vacation with friends in Vegas and we were all sharing a hotel room. I had a dream that my friend and I were at a street fair and she was trying to negotiate the price down on a pickle. The guy wanted $20 a pickle. Well she’s freakin haggling for an hour and I’m getting more annoyed. Worst thing is she didn’t even want a pickle she just wanted to “win”. Well I woke up it’s the middle of the night and she’s awake and I just look at her and say “PICKLE” roll my eyes and go back to bed. Next morning she told me I was talking in my sleep. I asked what I said and she’s like you just said the word pickle. I’m like ohhh I was awake and really annoyed with you. I told her the story and she laughed. It’s been years and I’m still mad at her for the pickle incident in my dream lol
I shit myself. Yesterday I shat myself. Is this incorrect following Victor’s Grammar Rules? 😅🤣 Lol. Love you!
Also, I think Dr. Seuss would be on your side, but America HAS CANCELED HIM.
The Complete Oxford Dictionary has “thung”, though they don’t know the proper definition.
thung, n. A dull heavy sound, as of a blow with the fist, but with some resonance.
thung v. (intransitive) to make such a sound.
You do realize that you are everyone in your dreams, right? Good night. 😊
So, last week I had a dream that a friend from work and I were at a school overnight because we had to go get that puppy. (?) The next morning I had an 8am call with said coworker friend (among others) and I told my husband “I bet Josh is going to be late to this call because we were at that school all night.” Husband: “ummm, what”. Me, exasperatedly: “I TOLD YOU THIS. I had to go with Josh to get that puppy last night … oh. wait.” But guess who got a puppy literally two days later completely unbeknownst to me? You’re welcome, Josh! Still irritated with my husband for not remembering a conversation that never happened, though.
I thought it was thorngs.
Okay but if you had finished reading a book. Would it be a buck? Or beck? Oh, put that pile of becks over by the books.
It can’t be a “thung” until it is a “thing”. So no, it’s not a thung, yet.
I woke up one morning and listened to my husband get up and get ready for work and leave the house. I dozed off and woke up to him coming back to stand in our bedroom door. I remember sort of turning my head and looking at him just standing there in his red work shirt and saying his name in a “what the fuck are you just standing there for?” Sort of way. Then I realized his arms were to long and his head was shaped weird and then he smiled and it kept going out and out towards his ears. Then I actually woke up and I am still low key pissed at him to this day for scaring the fuck out of me like that 🤣
Dream anger is a cruel mistress
Victor is just making sure that the word ‘thung’ enters common usage. Then people can start to have arguments about its proper use!
Sing, sung. Bring, brung, as in “I done brung you a prezzie.”
But… ping, pong. King kong. Ding dong.
If you think this is screwy, try making sense of the “i after e except after c” rule. Weird.
According to both Merriam-Webster.com and Dictionary.com, just because a word isn’t in the dictionary doesn’t mean it’s not real. Dictionaries only put in words used by many people. So, start using “thung” and get lots of others to use it, too!
Juin is right! Thung is now a thing. Using it.
Spring is sprung and Victor is thung.
I’ve been trying to make “parannoying” a word since middle school. Instead of “you’re making me paranoid,” it’s “you’re parannoying me.”
The Urban Dictionary (urbandictionary.com) agrees with you, Jenny, “thung” is absolutely a word….and a warning to your resident man-splainer: “Thung adj, A smart or nerdy person that can not hold his or her alcohol. 2 a nerd that has drank too much alcohol and is now hung over.” They list this definition as well: “The sound heard when one walks into a metal pole.” And we all know that “petard” comes from the same root as “petty.”
… Did I miss Booksgiving Day 2021? 🙁
HAhahahahhaaahahaha!!! Love it! I miss all thungs I used to do before the pandemic.
Kind of related due to awesome rhymes….
What’s brown and sounds like a bell?
Dung. 🙂
Bucky Katt once said “ You can wordify anything. Just verb it.” As in – fooding the cat. Therefore, nouns do have a tense. 😁
This is a really random request I know ( but if anywhere, this is the place for random!)
I just bought a spinning wheel. Do you guys have ideas for a name? It’s one of these ones in mahogany: http://kromski.com/spinning/the-minstrel-spinning-wheel/
Thank you guys!
I don’t often comment but just wanted to say I read your posts, I love your posts, thank you so much for sharing your unique way of approaching life. Thung! I can’t stop laughing! I needed this!
Thungs for the memories? Look them up in your photo album to remind you when they were all good things. Although, photo albums are probably thungs of the past now.
English USED to have tense cases for nouns and even adjectives. It was only when we slid from Middle English to Modern English that they disappeared, where strict word order made cases redundant. We used to mark ALL the words by how they were used. So many other languages still do change nouns based on tense, case, inflection, mood, and other cool things. Sometimes I think English is so BORING because we got rid of all that. Let’s bring it back!!
The podcast Every Little Thing has an episode on how to make new words “real” words. You could make this happen, and I don’t think you need to leave your house to do it!
I love when you and Victor get into it in dreamworld or in this one, which supposedly either could be the other. Now that’s what I call a thang.
I shall use “thung” now, out of loyalty! 😉 😁#takingitback #dontmeanathung
I work with a New-Zealander whose accent turns every thing into a thung.
Maybe this could work. Before it is born a baby dog is a “pippy”, then after it is born it is a “puppy”! Or something. I tried!😊
Or somethung!
Not one person here has mentioned “Sniglets”. Am I the only one who remembers Sniglets?!
Here’s a Sniglet I made up years and years ago: Corsettling. Definition: the wonderful, relaxed, loosey goosey kinda sag one’s body does having removed a tightly laced corset. *exhausted sigh* Oh yeah, that’s the stuff.
Your Pal,
Storm the Klingon
#18 – Latin didn’t die because of the Roman Language Police. It died out because the verbs wanted to conjugate and the nouns declined.
Posting anonymously and also apologizing. It’s just so rare to get a change to dust off Latin grammar jokes!
Also, if I had a bookstore with a dead languages section, I would hang a big sign over the shelves that said, “Ablatives? Absolutely!”
Also, more apologies for that last joke.
(Sorry!!)
#72 Schoolboy humour:
The ancient Latin language is dead as dead can be. It killed the ancient Romans and now it’s killing me.
nice