The Use Of 'A Thing'

Question

I've been using Firefox since before Chrome was a thing.It seems that in the sentence 'a thing' is used negatively. Do Native Speakers use 'a thing' both negatively and positively depending on the context?

GPY · Accepted Answer

SanjiFanboyIt seems that in the sentence 'a thing' is used negatively.

I wouldn't say so. To me it seems neutral.

SanjiFanboy Do Native Speakers use 'a thing' both negatively and positively depending on the context?

As far as I can think, the word "thing" in itself is usually fairly neutral, potentially becoming moderately pejorative in certain phrases e.g. "that thing". I can't think of a case where the word "thing" itself feels strongly positive. The rest of the context may of course be positive or negative towards whatever it is ("I love this thing" / "I hate this thing"). A special case where "thing" is strongly negative is when used to refer to a person:

"I don't want you going out with that ... that thing!"

The Use Of 'A Thing'

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