grammar R'Us'ns

[Fisher, Scott]

Tom Nas writes:

> Speaking of which: I often wonder about the correctness of
> Apple Computer's 'Think different'. In UK English it should
> be 'Think differently', if I'm not mistaken. Is this correct
> US English?

It's an obscure but legitimate use -- using the adjective (standing in for a
noun, as an appositive) instead of an adverb with the verb "think" suggests
not HOW you think, but WHAT you think (or what you think *about*).   The
same structure can be better exemplified by substituting a noun for the
adjective; it's impossible to decline a noun into an adverb, so the
confusion can't be present.

Think VW ads, for example. About 40 years ago, VW ran a famous ad campaign
with the headline, "Think small," over a photo of the original Beetle.  This
was a play on the well-known (and perfectly correct) English saying, "think
big."  If you were to translate this saying to its equivalent form using an
adverb, you'd end up with something like "think largely," which does not
mean anything remotely the same as "think big." (In fact, "think largely"
may well be one of those grammatically correct but lexically impossible
phrases, like "green ideas sleep furiously").

A more poetic citation of the same structure is found in the line from Dylan
Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that dark night:
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

It is often misquoted as "go gently."  The difference is subtle; in "go
gently," the adverb modifies the verb -- describes how the poet's dying
father would go.  In the correct version, "gentle" implicitly modifies the
person, rather than the action the person is taking.

"Think differently" is another one of those lexically improbable phrases --
how can we think differently, by using our feet?  (Well, I know that men
have sometimes been accused of not thinking with their heads.)  But by
saying "think different" -- in the context of "think big," for example --
the use of the adjective (which modifies nouns) implies that the THINGS one
thinks are different, and implies it in a way that is concise, to the point,
and, well, different.

So there.  Knew that English degree would come in handy one day... :-)

--Scott "Would you like Perl with that?" Fisher
  Tualatin, Oregon