Thread: can't or won't?
View Single Post
  #4 (permalink)  
Unread Oct 19th, 2015, 10:15 am
susan53 susan53 is offline
Sue
 
Join Date: Oct 8th, 2006
Location: Milan
Posts: 1,406
susan53 is on a distinguished road
Default Re: can't or won't?

In most contexts they'd be interchangeable. However, "out of order" means not working at all, whereas "There's something wrong with..." could also mean that there was a problem but the phone was still usable :
There's something wrong with this phone. I can hardly hear the person at the other end.

And of course, "out of order" is only applicable to mechanical objects, whereas "There's something wrong with..." could be used in much wider contexts :

There's something wrong with this door - it's really difficult to close it.
There's something wrong with david - he hasn't said two words all day.
__________________
An ELT Notebook
The DELTA Course
Reply With Quote