Wordcraft Community Home Page
Hung vs. Hanged

This topic can be found at:
https://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/932607094/m/2420089286

May 21, 2016, 20:08
Kalleh
Hung vs. Hanged
As those of you in the U.S. know, and perhaps those of you in the UK have an inkling, both the Republican and Democratic campaigns have been very acrimonious. This quote, from a Sanders' fan to a Democratic party leader, is typical: "Hey bitch, we know where you live, where you work, where you eat, where your kids go to school. I think people like you should be hung (sic) in a public execution."

Now, setting aside the horror of that statement, for our site, I wondered about the sic here. Can't "hung" be used there, or should it be "hanged?"
May 21, 2016, 21:20
arnie
The convention is that people executed by a rope round the neck are "hanged". In other uses the past participle is "hung".


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
May 21, 2016, 21:32
goofy
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage provides many examples (including Pepys, Austen, Faulkner and O'Connor) of hung used in the execution sense, and concludes that if you observe the distinction (that Arnie mentions above), "you will spare yourself the annoyance of being corrected for having done something that is not wrong."
May 23, 2016, 05:07
bethree5
'Hanged' is nice & active. Somehow 'you shall be hung by the neck until dead' doesn't have the same ring...
May 23, 2016, 18:13
Geoff
Haven't we done this discussion before? What they used to call a "YART" on another discussion board?
May 23, 2016, 19:35
<Proofreader>
Both men and women can be hanged but only men are hung.
May 23, 2016, 20:37
Kalleh
quote:
concludes that if you observe the distinction (that Arnie mentions above), "you will spare yourself the annoyance of being corrected for having done something that is not wrong."
Love it, Goofy! Smile

To me, "hung" sounds perfectly active.

quote:
Haven't we done this discussion before?

Probably, Geoff. We've been going for a long time. However, the sic caught my attention.
January 11, 2017, 16:03
goofy
quote:
Originally posted by bethree5:
'Hanged' is nice & active. Somehow 'you shall be hung by the neck until dead' doesn't have the same ring...


And yet both "be hung" and "be hanged" are passive. Maybe "active" and "passive" are untranslatable.