Was reading an article about autism (in Time), when this sentence grabbed me: But then autism research took a badly wrong turn.
"Badly wrong?" Is it just me or is this particular usage exceedingly strange? - not to mention flat-out (even badly?) wrong. Can something also be goodly wrong?
I bow to superior word wizards : What say you-all? What's really scary is that the more I read it the less wrong it seems.
Could be, Max; thank you. Just didn't seem to fit the tenor of the article. But that was one of the reasons I raised the question here - could be the phrase is used acceptably all the time but I've lived too sheltered a life to have come across it until now .
Something "going badly wrong" is somehow more acceptable to me than "a badly wrong turn." In the latter case, it seems that "badly-wrong" should be hyphenated. Better yet it should be obliterated. It is certainly stylistically awful and reads like a translation from another language (perhaps Japanese or some other non-European language) as carried out by a computer.
I agree with Max about the "degrees of" wrong thing. I didn't really like the "took a badly wrong turn" either, nancyk. Then I considered "took a horribly wrong turn" which sounded ok at first, but it still seems a little off kilter. If I was editing this document, I would have changed it to something like "took a turn which went horribly wrong" (definitely couldn't use "badly wrong" in that context).
Taking my corporate comms hat off, and going back to Operations now!
>But then autism research took a badly wrong turn.
I agree, it looks awful. But I think it is wrong for another reason altogether. I'll try to explain it but I am seriously bad with the proper grammatical terms so be forgiving please. Here goes.
Isn't "wrong turn" one concept, one, ugh I don't know if noun-phrase is the right term but that's what I'll call it. It is the same type of thing as an "upper hand" or "upper body" - these are “one” thing.
In the sentence they are qualifying only the word "wrong" thus disregarding the actual noun-phrase.
It still wouldn’t be pretty but saying the research took a bad wrong turn seems better to me.
I think badly wrong sounds terribly wrong...but, then, I use terribly wrong all the time but would never consider using badly wrong even though, I suppose, both are grammatically okay. So is this just a case of sound semantics? Or is it just that there's nothing absolutely wrong about it?
I don't see any grammatical problems*, we have an adverb, badly, modifying an adjective, wrong, which is one of the jobs of an adverb. The meaning is clear enough and I agree with SilkMuse that there are degrees of wrongness. It's awkward is all.
*The purple idea waited seven times consecutively before the clock happened. Nothing grammatically wrong with this sentence; it just doesn't mean anything.
The purple idea waited seven times consecutively before the clock happened. Nothing grammatically wrong with this sentence; it just doesn't mean anything.
Makes perfect sense to Frank Zappa! "Cruisin' to Montana on my dental floss..."
as i read it, i thought-- Ah ha, another person who doesn't quite know how to use insert.. (a tech discussion we had here last month..)
so they orgingally had "badly wrong" and editor read it, and said.. "Poor usage-- use "wrong turn" (or the opposite, they had wrong turn, and it was suggest "badly wrong" would be a better choice...)
the added one word, and forgot to delete the other, and ended up with a badly wrong turn.
Frightening, isn't it? No question that some things are wronger than others. Very wrong, horribly wrong, terribly wrong - none of these sets my teeth on edge as does badly wrong. I agree that the original would have been less offensive without the noun "turn." Even then, I would never have thought of saying Things went badly wrong. So much for my thinking outside the box linguistically.
Hi Helen, another person who doesn't quite know how to use insert.. My thoughts followed a similar path. It could well be that the author originally put "..a horribly wrong turn", and the editor found this too strong - and amended it without considering the result in context. For me, "a badly wrong turn" sounds awkward because the word "badly" contributes nothing here. It is too weak to reinforce the message. It is akin to a pleonasm, if you come to think of it.
But then autism research took a badly wrong turn. - TIME MAGAZINE
I have just read this thread and I agree with everyone. Why then, Milum, one might rightfully ask, did you resurrect this sleeping thread when you have nothing new to say?
Well, if you must ask, I want to say the same things that you all said but I want to say them in my way, and my way is in italics. Like the Italians always say - a thought in italics slips into the mind like rosa, rosa, Thunderbird wine. So here goes...
The term "Badly wrong turn" is semantically displeasing because it disrupts the smooth transfer of information from writer to reader and causes people like nancyk and me to do a double take. An adverb modifying an adjective that qualifies a noun in sequential alignment is abnormal syntax when the adjective root of the adverb (in this case "bad") is widely used in an almost cliched conjunction with both the adjective and the noun, i.e. bad wrong and bad turn. So... the editor at Time who let this insignificant little phrase slip by was, for that moment, merely a poor practitioner of the ever-changing editorial arts.
What?...So - I told you I didn't have anything new to say. That does it! I'm outta here! I'm going back over to Wordplay and Fun where I'm better known and admired. Geez! Please forgive me for breathing. Geez! -
In the book, Boners, there is this malaprop: "Momma spanked Johnny because he was wicked in the seat of his pants." That, at least, was from a school kid, not someone getting paid to wrong - er, write.
To go badly wrong is to go less badly wrong than plain wrong. In an extreme case, to go badly wrong may even be to go right. - inselpeter.
Yeah, goodbuddy inselpeter, that's what I was gonna say, but in the case before the board, it would take an even-more-so badly wrong turn, in order to make the turn-in-question become right. Follow? -mw
Get on board, little children; Get on board, little children; Get on board, little children. Der's room for many a more!"
...just another way of saying, here comes my two cents:
1. Terribly wrong -- terribly is used as an intensifier that our ears immediately accept because we're accustomed to hearing people refer to situations, people, things, and so on, as being "terribly this" and "terribly that":
terribly good sense of humor
The same goes for awfully:
awfully good movie!
However, badly, an often used adverb, is not used as an intensifier to the degree that terribly and awfully are.
2. Yes! In a strictly grammatical sense -- or in an awfully strict grammatical sense, badly can function as an adverb modifying the adjective wrong.
Problem is: The concept of wrongness subsumes badness. We think of something wrong as being something that needs to be made right or as something that should have been done right. So, by saying something is badly wrong rings terribly redundantly to my sensibility.
To say something is terribly wrong doesn't sound redundant because terribly sounds like a common, traditional intensifier. But to say something is badly wrong sounds awkward because bad and wrong are closely associated in fundamental meanings.
3. After having written about badly wrong for five minutes now, my ear has become accustomed to badly wrong turn, and I will become terribly happy to use the phrase every chance I get from this point onward. And, if, instead, my language takes a badly wrong turn in doing so, I would be awfully happy if one of you would turn me around and set me back on the straight and narrow.
Taking an awfully, terribly, badly wrong turn, WrongWind
"badly wrong turn" wouldn't have made it past The New Yorker editors, I don't believe.
"badly wrong turn" wouldn't have made it past The New Yorker editors, I don't believe.
I believe that's what Faldage would call an emphatic double negative. Like "Not with my wife, you don't." I think it's perfectably acceptable in USn's colloquial speech, but praps not among our neighbors to the north.
and sadly, i think our word wind is whistling the wrong tune if she thinks the New Yorker is as carefully edited today as it was in the past..
long gone are the days of using other publications poor choices in editing as little bon mots. nowdays, even i can find a mistake (ok once in 5 years.. but still!)
what Faldage would call an emphatic double negative.
Unfortunately. it's a logical double negative and they get incomprehensible real fast. Emphatic multiple negatives are easy to understand, as in my classic: I don't like to have to kill nobody without they ain't no chance of no gold in it for me.
On second thought, I do bleeve it *is an emphatic double negative. The emphatic multiple negative is usually marked by some other nonstandard grammatic device. That is not the case in this example, which is what threw me off. that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it, until something better comes along, anyway
what's up with replacing a dash with the two little dots over the second "e" in words like de-emphasize, re-education, etc? i really like it ~ it is the hip thing to do now? the hyphens seem so stilted.
oh, and what are those little dots called? i know i should know =(
It's called a dieresis and it comes from French. I don't think it's particularly new; more of a stylistic choice.The German version is umlaut but it has a different fuction. I'm sure Faldage will be glad to go to great lengths to explain to you, cara
Them little dots are called a diaeresis - and they annoy me no end, as I first noticed them under the editorship of Tina Brown, who also filled the magazine with ads, which did not go away when Ms. Brown did.
So, the diaereses are guilty by association.
edit: Damn, AnnaS beat me by 43 seconds - but I think I spelled it righter 'n she did.
double edit: And my Webster's says it comes from the Greek, via that ol' Latin (it means "to divide" because it's dividing the pronunciation into two syllables), but I'm sure Faldaje will show up soon to tell us all a thing or two about it
i've only been reading the magazine for about a year ~ but the ads aren't NEARLY as overwhelming as in, say, PC magazine.
why on earth would they bug you? the hyphen always causes a nanosecond of mental pause in me, but enough to stunt the flow of the sentence. surely you wouldn't prefer na-ive?
Anna ~ would you please direct your SO to this thread? umlaut was the word i was [incorrectly, obviously] looking for... so i'd like to be both disabused and edumacated.
Regarding dieresis vs. diaeresis, either is correct but the former is considered a variant.
The symbol itself is used, in the examples, to indicate that the vowel is pronounced as a separate syllable, as in naďve or Brontë. The term umlaut refers to the linguistic process wherein a back vowel, such as a, o or u is dragged kicking and screaming to the front of the mouth in anticipation of a front vowel lurking there in the next syllable. In German this process is indicated by placing a dieresis over the back vowel.
Okay, co-worker is one that should get diaeresitized. I just get annoyed with adding them dots to words like "cooperate," which gets along just fine without them.
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: What say you-all? What's really scary is that the more I read it the less wrong it seems.
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