@_Shorty - As it was me who originally put the question, I think the 'setup of the sentence' is vital, and the first part absolutely has bearing on the whole thing. I suggest you reread my original question and the comments that follow it; this whole thread is about a two-part idiom, currently with two versions:

'If you think ..., you've (got) another think coming'
'If you think ..., you've (got) another thing coming'

I'm inclined to agree with Hairy Scot,and that is the form that is usually listed in dictionaries, but I accept that the 'thing' version is probably more popular these days, and as such, perfectly acceptable. If you want to debate the origins of the full idiom, that's fine, but 'another thing coming' on its own could mean anything.

Incidentally I've put my findings (on its history) on my blog: http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2014/01/having-think-about-another-think-coming.html

@_Shorty - Can you be more specific; the only hit I can find from 1800-1826 is this:

"I own, indeed, that in God's covenant of promise there is a connexion and order established, for conferring of these promised blessings unto us : so that when God gives one thing, it is a pledge of another thing coming: when he gives grace to ..."

But there is absolutely no previous mention of "if"and "think" here, which is the whole point of this thread - the play with the two occurrences. And even if it did, one example hardly makes a trend.

The discussion here is not simply about "another thing coming", but expressions like "If you think that, you've got another think/thing coming". The earliest known example of the 'thing' version is from 1919, in the Syracuse Herald (N.Y.) - "If you think the life of a movie star is all sunshine and flowers you've got another thing coming."

The "think" version is though to have been around from before that, but examples are difficult to find. But here's one from 1906:

"May be you think your factory is not a school. But if you do, you've got another think coming" (http://books.google.pl/books?id=NQVZAAAAYAAJ&q=%22got+another+think+coming%22&dq=%22got+another+think+coming%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=20HJUqiwKvOA7Qap9oGoDQ&redir_esc=y)

And this is from a book by Montague Glass called "Elkan Lubliner, American" published in 1912.

"And if you think that this here feller Borrochson comes to work in our place, Scheikowitz, you've got another think coming, and that's all I got to say."

(You can find it at Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27423/27423-h/27423-h.htm)

Thanks for that. I've now found earlier examples than in the OED.

@_Shorty - that looks convincing at first, but the devil is in the detail. Everyone's pretty well agreed that the expression we're talking about (following "If you think ...") only arose around the turn of the century, so there's not much point in taking a period that ends in 1900.

Click on the references to Google Books below your graph, and you'll find that none of the examples include the expression we're talking about. Let's take the first few examples from 1861-1899:

'... my own brief experience teaches me that a pessary is one thing after it comes from the hands of the inventor, and another thing coming from the hands of the maker'

'And then again, gentlemen, I see another thing coming'

' "... that 's quite another thing !'' Coming back into Deansgate'

'... one thing coming out by mistake, another thing coming out by forethought'

'There's another thing coming on my mind at present'

'I am sorry to see another thing coming about in this land of ours'

None of these are preceded by "If you think ...", the expression under discussion, so I'm afraid they're pretty irrelevant.

This could also be said of my graph, of course, but the lines on my graph do seem to reflect the use of this particular construction. And if you click on the references below, say for 1930-1999, the examples do seem to mainly be of the "If you think ..." type.

What's more, you look more closely at yours and you'll see we're talking tiny numbers here. Even the "thing" peak in 1900 (which was very short lived) represents a hundredth of the "think" peak in the 1990s, and could be due to just a few books. In fact clicking on 1900 only brings up two books. Even 1861-1899 only brings up twenty, and as we've seen, none of them are of the "If you think" type.

Incidentally, PITE only recognises http addresses, but you can fool it into making Google addresses links by removing the s from https. It will then show as a link, and Google will automatically convert it into https.

@Elena Dolnova - the grammatical functions are different:

Assists with ... is a verb and needs a subject - She assists / I assist with coordinating credit control (better without "the")

Assisting with ... is a Noun phrase - "My job involves assisting with the coordination of ... (it's better to avoid having two -ing forms together)

If it's for something like a CV, which you use would depend on the rest of the paragraph; you could use all verbs, or all gerunds (-ing forms) and nouns.

All three are fine except for the comma in the middle one, as the subject there is the whole clause "Just because I was mean to you". Otherwise, that construction is perfectly OK - "Just because it's raining doesn't mean we have to stay in all day."

@Jakab Gipsz - a "because" clause might answer "why", but "just because" is often used in a different, idiomatic, way, really meaning something like "The simple fact that" . Here are some titles of books found on Google Books:

"Just Because They'Ve Left Doesn't Mean They're Gone"
"Just Because It's Not Wrong Doesn't Make It Right"
"Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should"

"Just because" is used quite a lot in idiomatic constructions with "doesn't mean". For example this quote is often attributed to Joseph Heller:
“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you"

It would seem that the pronoun-less version is much more common; here are some actual Google counts:
"Just because I love you doesn't mean" - 148
"Just because I love you it doesn't mean" - 36
"Just because I love you that doesn't mean" - 15

I'd also suggest that there's a slight difference between the "it" and the "that" versions. There seems to me to be a stronger stress on "that", emphasising that the first action doesn't justify the second (in the speaker's view).

I'm afraid your example "Just because I was mean to you you shouldn't necessarily be mean to me." may satisfy your grammatical criteria, but sounds less natural to me than the original version, which is simply more idiomatic.

Your last point about "That I was mean to you doesn't mean you should be mean to me." This sentence is in fact correct, as "that" clauses are Noun clauses (or Nominal clauses) and fill the functions of nouns, subject, object etc, just as in your example. They are not used in Subject position so often (it is rather formal, or used for literary effect - it's a kind of fronting), but as a Direct Object, as in the sentence "I think that I was mean to you." - What do I think? - "that I was mean to you".

Here is an example from Anthony Trollope (The Duke's Children):
"That she should be told that she had disgraced herself was terrible to her."

Other nominal clauses include "wh-clauses" - both Nominal Relative clauses - "What I'd really like now is a nice big cup of coffee" (Subject) and interrogative clauses - "I wonder where they're taking us" (Direct Object)

Non-finite phrases with infinitives and gerunds also function as Noun clauses - "I like to dance" (Direct Object), - "Smoking cigarettes is bad for you" (Subject)

They can also fill some other Noun functions
"And that’s exactly what he did" (Subject complement)
"His dream, that one day he would play for PSG, was never out of his head" (Appositive)

There's an article about the "just because ... doesn't mean" construction for ESL/EFL teachers, with lots of examples at: http://www.stickyball.net/writing.html?id=383

Another site with more examples, of all three types: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/just_because.html

And there's another discussion about it here: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/95964/grammar-just-because-a-doesnt-mean-b

@Harry Boscoe - now you're talking. Here are some non-governmental sources for your examples:

Inside the OAS's Cuba Conundrum - Time Magazine
HHS's Sebelius: 'No, My Halloween Costume Is Not A Pinata' - Forbes Magazine
Can Physicians Cope With CMS’S Requirements? - PVW Health Care Law Blog

And a few others, for good measure:

A history of HUS: HDS's file-development hustle - The Register (Hitachi Data Systems)
CDS's parent company - CDS website (Clearing and Depository Services Inc, Canada)
Three elected to serve on ASTC’s Board of Directors - ASTC website (Association of Science-Technology Centers)

So between us I think we have definitively answered porsche's question.

@Harry Boscoe - As far as I know, your examples all refer to singular nouns - Inland Revenue Service, Columbia Broadcasting System etc, which certainly answer nicolejamison's original question, and where I don't think there's much debate.

But I was specifically trying to find examples that would answer porsche's question about what happened when the last word of the initialism was a plural, eg Services.

Hi, Jim - firstly, like = said is usually thought to be of a Valley girl provenance (see Wikipedia article linked to below). There's a wicked parody of it by Catherine Tait on YouTube (warning - F-word at the end) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IINcyiB2JJc .

"Like" at sentence end - I don't think Online Etymology were saying that the actual sentence "going really fast, like" was from 1778, but that this sort of usage could be traced back to 1778. It's quite difficult to find examples in written sources, as this is very much spoken dialect and looking for this use of "like" is like looking for a needle in a haystack. But you'll find a bit of discussion if you google "ending a sentence with like". It seems to be mainly Geordie (Newcastle) and Edinburgh and Irish. (Geordie and Scots share a lot of words and expressions, for example - laddie, lassie, bairn, bonny)

I found this one on a site about Geordie - "Ye knaa what ah mean leik." and if you google "Ken what I mean, like" you'll get a few Scottish examples. And this is from Trainspotting - "Bit ******* late, like." There are also a few hits for "I was only saying, like" where like means roughly "that's all".

And from a book on the use of Irish dialect in films, where they suggest it means something like "as it were":

"Nothin' Frankie. You came up on me so sudden, like." (The Informer)
"We were only young, like" (Nora)
"He's only a young fella, like" (The Wind that shakes the barley)

http://books.google.pl/books?id=Ej588744-gYC&pg=PA125&dq=sentence+end+filler+like&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XherUs-sINGu7AaplYDIDg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=sentence%20end%20filler%20like&f=false

From another book, from a serving-girl's diary - "First January 1871. This is the beginning of another year and I'm still general servant like, to Mrs Henderson"

A different usage, in Aberdonian / Aberdeenshire dialect the standard (at least stereotypical) greeting is "Fit like, mon?" - "How's things?" (wh is pronounced f in tbis dialect, so fit = whit = what)

Good article about most uses at Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like

"Selfies of 2013 – the best, worst and most revealing" - The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/dec/11/selfies-2013-the-best-worst-most-revealing

"David Cameron and Danish PM brush off criticism of Mandela memorial selfie" - The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/11/david-cameron-danish-pm-mandela-memorial-selfie