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Imagine there is a conversation between two people, where while the speaker has been talking in an ambiguous way, thye notice that the second person is getting upset. In order to prevent the other side to get annoyed, the speaker trys to say something.

Are all the sentences below natural and idiomatic in this sense?

Meanwhile, do they all they make the same thing?

1- Don't take it wrong.
2- Don't take it the wrong way.
3- Don't take it away wrong.
4- Don't take it away the wrong way.
5- Don't get it wrong.
6- Don't get it the wrong way.

To me they all are natural and mean the same sense, but I needed to inquire about it.

2 Answers 2

1

I think the most common way to say this in English is what you have posted as:

Number 2: "Don't take it the wrong way".

These are not how I would say it:

Number 1: This is okay but probably not the way someone would say it.

Number 3: Using the word "away" here does not sound normal.

Number 4: Same as #3

Number 5 and 6: This may be rude, in that you are implying they are "getting it wrong". So I would not suggest this.

1
  • 1
    Just to add to this, "to take something the the wrong way" is different from "to get something wrong".
    – wavery
    May 12, 2019 at 6:01
3

The second one is the meaning that you want, in that it's someone asking the hearer to avoid getting offended by something they said. The first feels a bit ungrammatical to me. The third and fourth are asking someone to avoid learning the wrong lesson ("takeaways"), and the fifth and sixth are asking someone to perform a task in the correct fashion (with the sixth specifically asking someone to retrieve something correctly).

2
  • I agree with @nick012000 that #2 is the best one. And in 3&4 I don't think you need the word "away".
    – wavery
    May 11, 2019 at 8:38
  • Thank you @wavery, but while omitting "away" from #3 will give me the #1 which is not grammatical (according to what nic012000 mentioned, I think it won't work. I wonder if you could post a conplete asnwer as nic did. Thbak you.
    – A-friend
    May 11, 2019 at 9:22

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