“Something’s wrong” vs “Something wrong”

colloquialismsgrammar

I need this to provide a warning message in my software. "Something's wrong" seems more appropriate to my ear, but I have seen people using "Something wrong".

Are they both correct?

Best Answer

It seems to me that "Something wrong" is nothing else than telegraphic style for "Something is wrong" ("Something's wrong"), and so there seems to be a choice between two styles, or more precisely two registers; the question is then one of formality/technical communication; how formal do you want your text to be or how formal does it need to be? The choice is yours, once you know that a telegraphic style can be considered a rather technical or bench-level register, and that out of the domains where it is usually found, it can be felt as informal. Here is an article out of which you might get some inspiration: Telegraphic Registers in Written English - Stanford University. According to this paper there are several telegraphic registers, but Wikipedia does not mention telegraphic registers.

(Wikipedia)

The ISO has defined standard ISO 12620 on Data Category Registry (ISO, 2018). This is a registry for registering linguistic terms used in various fields of translation, computational linguistics and natural language processing and defining mappings both between different terms and the same terms used in different systems. The registers identified are:

  • bench-level register
  • dialect register
  • facetious register
  • formal register
  • in-house register
  • ironic register
  • neutral register
  • slang register
  • taboo register
  • technical register
  • vulgar register
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