"The wrong..."

Question

Hello all,This is quite a frequent expression, so I'll quote Reinfield from the Spanish version of Dracula (the movie) (as per the subtitles):«With all that, I thought I came to the wrong castle», he says.But why "the wrong castle"? There's only one "right" castle and  a great number of "wrong ones". Why isn't "a wrong caslte" correct. It can one of many wrong castles, after all.And, as an afterthought, why isn't the relative clause tense-shifted like this: «I thought I had come to the wrong castle»? If in the present tense it is «I think I have come to the wrong castle», tense shifting should yield the Past Perfect...Thanks in adavance,Anton

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

Ant_222Why isn't "a wrong caslte" correct. It can one of many wrong castles, after all.

This is a point on which English is not completely logical, perhaps. (There are quite a few others!) Think of it as idiomatic, rather than logical, to say "the wrong ...".

I took the wrong road.
I came to the wrong castle.
You dialed the wrong number.
You're asking the wrong person.
They bought the wrong brand of toothpaste.
It looks like they are getting into the wrong line.
The doctor prescribed the wrong kind of medicine.

Repeat "the wrong", "the wrong", "the wrong", firmly closing your eyes to the logic!

Exception: We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.
(We took many turns, but one of them was wrong.)
This is unlike the cases above where I did not take many roads, come to many castles, dial many numbers, ask many people, and so on, so there may be a tiny bit of logic involved. But personally, I would discount that, and just learn that the typical case is "the wrong".

Ant_222tense shifting should yield the Past Perfect...

That's possible, but not necessary. The speaker is probably measuring the time of his arrival from the moment of speaking (came), not from the moment (in the very recent past) of thinking (had come). The placement of think in the past (thought) is only a sort of empty grammatical pattern anyway, because, in all likelihood, the coming to the castle occurred before the thought that it was the wrong castle. That is, the guy was probably standing at the door of the castle already when the thought then came to him that it might be the wrong castle.

CJ

Ant_222 · Answer

Thank you, CalifJif, for so nice a reply.

Bottomline: Hiring a hypnotist should help in the learning of certain aspects of English

))

Anton

CalifJim · Answer

Ant_222Hiring a hypnotist should help in the learning of certain aspects of English ))

Hee!!! You said a mouthful!!!

CJ

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