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object » option

Chiefly in:   money is/was no option

Classification: English – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • “If money was no option: I would still be doing what I’m doing: being a singer, a performer, an entertainer.” (link)
  • “What would you be eating for dinner if money was no option?” (link)
  • “money is no option here, i dont care how much it costs, i want her to have a great night.” (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Wilson Gray (American Dialect Society mailing list, 3 October 2005)

Wilson Gray quoted, “We were taken to parties in stretch limos with drivers, free drinks,
and everything. Money was no option.” And I was off on a Google web search, which netted huge numbers of relevant occurrences of “money is/was no option”.

The contribution of “object” to the semantics of “money is/was no object” — (the availability of) money is no barrier, meaning money doesn’t have to be considered, any amount can be spent — seems to be hard for many people to tease out, and they settle on “no option” (conveying, I guess, that there’s no need to choose on the basis of monetary considerations) as making more sense.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/10/03 |

I'll be darned » all be darned

Classification: English – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • “There are zillions of SPAM concoctions on the internet - everything from Rack of Spam to Spammus to Spam soup. But all-be-darned if I couldnt find one for SPAM cake.” (E-mail to Jeff Shaumeyer, quoted on his blog (bearcastle.com/blog/).)
  • “…you know, all be darned, I have never seen that before. never. I know the rule, … I’ve known it all My Life, and all be darned, there it Is.” (link)
  • “… well all be darned if that didnt work!!! Thx alot!!!! not understanding how it is working cause line 28 and 29 are the else statements for setting the …” (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Chris Ambidge, David Fenton (Usenet newsgroup soc.motss, 2-3 October 2005)

Hundreds of Google web hits, some (like the first cite above) with hyphens, most without. The first cite was quoted on soc.motss by Chris Ambidge, and he and David Fenton both immediately realized the possibly eggcornic character of the expression. (This quotation also illustrates overnegation; the meaning expressed is one that would be rendered in standard English as “I’ll be darned if I could find one for SPAM cake” ‘I couldn’t find one for SPAM cake’.)

The vowel of the contraction “I’ll” is often monophthongized, even by speakers (like me) who don’t generally monophthongize /aj/. This yields something that could easily be interpreted as a variant of “darn it all”.

There are some parallel occurrences of “all be damned” to be found among the many irrelevant hits — for instance: “It may be all style and shock value, but
all be damned if it doesn’t look good.” (link)

| Comments Off link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/10/03 |

shrift » shift

Chiefly in:   short shift

Classification: English – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • Unlike Soderbergh’s Traffic, whose compelling characters sometimes get short shift in favor of examining the drug trade in as many ways possible, Last Resort takes care to always put the story first. (The Johns Hopkins News-Letter, Feb. 22, 2001)
  • Teachers encouraged her to go to stage school, but her father pulled her out after three months because “nobody else in the community sent their daughters there”. Ballet lessons, too, got short shift. (The Guardian, Aug. 21, 2003)
  • There’s another problem — because of the rise of the hip-ness of American bands, British indie-bands are getting the short-shift. (The Stanford Daily Online, Oct. 3, 2003)
  • Sometimes restaurants that specialize in beef give short shift to the other menu choices, but that’s not the case at Rio Chama. (Albuquerque Journal, Aug. 12, 2005)

The origin of _short shrift_ is explained by here, here, and here.

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/09/12 |

nether » never

Chiefly in:   never regions

Classification: English – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

  • Beneath the balcony are shop windows — or are they doorways? or … the entrance to the never regions. (Venice Gondolier, Apr. 7, 2004)
  • Rather worse for wear when I posted this topic originally, so duplicated it when I thought I had actually lost it somewhere in the never regions of my PC. (KVR Audio forum, Apr. 25, 2004)
  • Mr Admin was detained in the never regions of the country and a mystery Southend Central bug wiped out some of the other potential attendees! (Southend Central forum, Dec. 17, 2004)

Possibly influenced by Neverland of Peter Pan fame.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/09/11 |

rank and file » ranking file

Classification: English – and «» in/en – idiom-related

Spotted in the wild:

In transcripts of committee meetings, there may be some confusion (on the part of either the speaker or the transcriber) between rank and file and ranking members of the committee.

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/09/11 |
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