To which two readers responded with essentially the same (valid) point:wrongly/wrong “Wrongly” always precedes the verb it modifies: “He was wrongly suspected of having used garlic powder in the lasagna.” “Wrong” is the word you want after the verb: “She answered wrong.”
and:This is interesting. I would say "She answered incorrectly." I would not say "She answered incorrect." How is wrongly/wrong different? I would also say "She was incorrect" not "She was incorrectly." As I would say "She was wrong."
I looked back at the Common Errors site and discovered that this was a case where the entry had been removed, though I still had it listed among the entries I use to create the daily entries. The point is not that the entry is wrong, but the entry is not fully fleshed out. If you have been saying "She answered wrongly," you are not grammatically incorrect, but the word "wrong" also does something that the word "incorrect" does not: it serves as an adverb as well as an adjective."She answered wrong" seems wrong to me. Her answer was wrong (adjective modifying a noun). She answered wrongly (adverb modifying a verb, regardless of pre or post position relative to verb). Similarly: "She answered incorrectly" and not "She answered incorrect."
I still like the guideline of the entry: "wrongly" goes before the verb it modifies. But that is a guideline, not a comprehensive usage rule. It is perfectly correct (and necessary) to say, for example, "She was accused wrongly," if you are using that sort of inverted construction.
If you thought you observed something wrong about this entry, you were right!
My apologies for any confusion.
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