To get the wrong end of the stick means to misunderstand.For example when I asked him "Where do you live?" He answered "I leave on Friday" so he got the wrong end of the stick- he didn't understand my question. I hope this helps Dalena.

It's a great expression, and we use it a lot in everyday English. We use it when someone completely misunderstands what someone else is saying. The example in your book is a good one. It suggests that someone said something to you which you totally misinterpreted. Maybe the speaker was shocked or surprised by your reaction, and left the room. You now realise that you misunderstood what we was saying to you and you turn to another person in the room and say 'Did I get the wrong end of the stick? Is that not what he meant?' The word 'that' here refers to your interpretation of his words, which you now realise was the opposite of what the speaker intended.

Thanks for posting Delena! "to get the wrong end of stick" Is to not understand a situation correctly. Examples include: -Her friend saw us arrive at the party together and got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I said how nice he was and Julie got the wrong end of the stick and thought I wanted to go out with him. -http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/get+the+wrong+end+of+the+stick "Nice Rottweiler" said Rufus. I told Rufus the guard dog was having a bad day today, had been growling a lot. What did he do? He went skipping right up to it, tried to cheer it up "oooh poor doggie" and it bit him in the face. Totally got the wrong end of the stick. by Horton Cum-Studley Thank you for your time! -Chris

Dalena: I do not know the origin of the phrase, but you can think of it this way. If there was dog poop to clean up from the ground, and one end of the stick had dog poop on it, that end would be the wrong end to touch. Therefore, any time you get the worst or unpleasant part of any experience, you can use the phrase "get the wrong end of the stick" to figuratively describe your experience. For example, you might say; "You know, I dated that young man, and he was nice at first; but he was manipulative, and I really got the wrong end of the stick in that brief relationship." . (Hope that helps.) Or, how about an athletic competition? "The way the referee was calling the penalties in that soccer game, our team really got the wrong end of the stick!" . we really got the

For info, I like this website for explaining idioms.... http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/ It explains British, American and Australian idioms. Great resource for tricky phrases.