Check out these phrases a lot of people get wrong

I’ll admit it.  I’m a linguistics nerd.  I think interesting facts and observations about language are pretty cool.

So I was reading an article about all these common phrases, idioms I guess, that pop up, then get kind of distorted as time goes by.  Here’s a few of them:

• You’ve got another thing coming – Even Judas Priest gets this one wrong!  That’s the name of their song — I checked!  The phrase is supposed to be “You’ve got another THINK coming”.  If you THINK this, you better THINK again, get it?  I always thought that’s what Judas Priest was saying, and it turns out they should have!
• And speaking of “should have”, do you know a lot of people who say and write should of?  That’s sort of understandable because when you use the contraction “should’ve”, it does sound a lot like “should of”.  (OK, now the word “should” looks weird to me because I keep typing it.)
• Butt naked – It’s really “buck naked” but I don’t know why.  If you’re buck naked, your butt (among other things) is showing.
• Spitting image – it took me a while to figure this one out, but I think I get it.  It should be “spit and image”.  What the heck does THAT mean?  I’ve got a feeling that in this phrase “spit” is a shortening of “spirit”.  And then it makes sense.  If you look exactly like someone, you’re the “spirit and image” of them.
• Chock it up – I’ve never heard anyone actually do this one.  It’s really “chalk it up”, like “chalk it up to genius”.  Write it on the board as a score for genius.

Check back here tomorrow around this time and I’ll have a few more for ya!