He even spelled his own client's name wrongly/wrong.

Question

Hi people!I found this sentence in the Cambridge Dictionary and would like to know why both options are acceptable.Are "I pronounce bad/badly" both acceptable as well?Thanks!Mara.

Paco2004 · Accepted Answer

Hello Mara

If you google, you'll get 21,000 pages for "spelled my name wrong" and only 460 for "spelled my name wrongly". Both are correct but "wrongly" sounds a bit too formal in spite of the fact we are taught to use "wrongly" in school.

paco

Riglos · Answer

But why os this so, Paco? Have you got any idea?

BTW, is the other sentence correct in its two versions? (The one I had asked about in my previous post.)

Thanks a lot!

Mara.

Paco2004 · Answer

Hello Mara

I myself want to know why it is so.

My guess is that this tendency has its origin in the grammar of Old English that was spoken by English people a millennium ago.

The Old English was a language very similar to the present day German. One of its features was that nouns and adjectives distinctively inflected according to cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and instrumental. Another feature of Old English was that the language had not so many adverbs compared with the present day English. The reason is that in Old English, adjectives in instrumental cases functioned as adverbials. For example, the instrumental cases of wearm (warm) and riht (right) were wearme and rihte, and they meant "warmly" and "rightly" respectively. Another way to form an adverb was to add a suffix "-lice" (= -like, the present day -ly) to an adjective. For example, 'yfelice' (badly) from 'yfel' (bad) and anfaldlice (honestly) from andfald (honest). This Old English system declined during 10-13 century partly due to the Viking invasion and partly due to French Norman conquest of England. After William the Conqueror took the power in England in 1066, the English language lost its status as the official language of England and the language became a vulgar tongue spoken only among uneducated people of middle to lower classes and it was never taught in school and left to change without any intervention of prescriptive grammar rules. It was this period when the English language drastically changed its nature of the language. The tedious case inflexions of nouns and adjectives almost disappeared. People spoke the instrumental "warme" the same way as the nominative/accusative "warm". When the English language obtained again the status of the official language in the 14th century, scholarly people felt it inconvenient adjectives and their corresponding adverbials were the same in form (like 'warm' and 'warm'). So they began to start adding '-ly' to any adjective to make a new adverb ('warmly' from 'warm'). It would be probable there were a lot of newly coined adverbs of "-ly" form when Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales around 1390. But the old collocations were not easy to change in spite of the introduction of such new adverbs. And so the saying like "He spelled my name wrong(e)" has persistently remained as a popular collocation among people. [Note "wrong" itself was not an Old English word. It was a word Scandinavian people brought into English]

As to the choice between "pronounce bad" or "pronounce badly", I don't know which is right or whether both are right. As far as I know, both of them are rarely spoken.

paco

Welkins2139 · Answer

I think both of them are correct but they have different meanings. with wrongly, i think he doesnt even ABLE to spell his own client's name. with wrong, he was wrong in spelling his client's name.

Paco2004 · Answer

Hello Welkins

I agree with you someway. "Wrongly" is a manner adverb. We can move it before the adverb. "He wrongly spelled my name". On the other hand, "wrong" can be parsed as a 'resultative second-predicate adjective'. "He spelled my name, but the spelling was wrong". But I cannot get the reason "spell one's name wrongly" can mean "be unable even to spell one's name".

paco

My2sense · Answer

Welkins2139I think both of them are correct but they have different meanings. with wrongly, i think he doesnt even ABLE to spell his own client's name. with wrong, he was wrong in spelling his client's name.

I think both mean the same thing. "Not correct"

He even spelled his own client's name wrongly. <---- Although correct to use it does seem 'strange' to say it this way.

Welkins2139 · Answer

Unless someone could convince me, I still think they are different. "wrongly " is adverb. "wrong" is adjective.

He even spelled his own client's name wrongly. I think " wrongly " is modified " spelled"

He even spelled his own client's name wrong. I think " wrong " is modifed " his own client's name. "

Paco2004 · Answer

Welkins2139Unless someone could convince me, I still think they are different. "wrongly " is adverb. "wrong" is adjective.

Please prove it covincingly.

paco

He even spelled his own client's name wrongly/wrong.

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions