# A grammar pet peeve: Hanged vs. Hung **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 28, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669 "2013-02-28T21:33:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/61 "2013-03-01T19:30:30Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > …If it’s just a picture title, like “My Sister and I”, I don’t know why either “I” or “me” would be better, since it’s just a phrase, not a whole sentence. So it’s not truly either a subject nor an object… Well if it was just a picture of yourself, you wouldn’t ever label it “I”, would you? I’m by no means an expert in grammar, but like **Leaffan** , I think it just looks and sounds wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/62 "2013-03-01T19:38:29Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > Well if it was just a picture of yourself, you wouldn’t ever label it “I”, would you? I’m by no means an expert in grammar, but like **Leaffan** , I think it just looks and sounds wrong. Clinton could, if he wanted to, excuse his captioning but saying that the implied subject is “This is” This is I, This is My Mother and I, This is Our Cousin Jack and I, and so on. Traditionally, a demonstrative pronoun as the subject and a copulative verb calls for a nominative in the predicate. This has relaxed in modern times. No one bats an eye if, on the phone, you reply to, “Is [Your Name] there?” with “This is him,” rather than “This is he” but in the past it was a no-no. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/63 "2013-03-01T20:08:31Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > Well if it was just a picture of yourself, you wouldn’t ever label it “I”, would you? I’m by no means an expert in grammar, but like **Leaffan** , I think it just looks and sounds wrong. It sounds dumb to me, too, but I think that is what the strict prescriptivists would say is correct, no? “I” should be in the nominative. But, then again, there are disjunctive pronouns that are used in languages, and I think this would cover that case. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/64 "2013-03-01T20:34:50Z")
Depends on how you \*infer/imply it: “This is a picture of Mom and me.” “This is Mom and me.” (FWIW, I would side with using “me,” also, but apparently the editor(s) thought otherwise.) Depending upon your point of view. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/65 "2013-03-01T20:38:35Z")
> [@rsat3acr](#): > > I stand corrected, thanks. Still sounds wrong to me however. Have you ever read the comic strip _Jump Start_? The main male character’s mother is quite a grammar cop. I bring this up because the one thing I remember her complaining about was the use of the phrase “first annual” - if it’s just the first one, then how do you know it’s going to be annual? As for grammar pet peeves, my main one is probably “its” and “it’s”. Does anyone else have something that you know is grammatically incorrect, but you do it anyway? One of mine is, “\_\_\_\_ is me” (“is” takes a subject, so it would be “is I”). ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/66 "2013-03-01T20:51:26Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > I lean prescriptivist in most other grammar issues, but I despise the word “hanged”. It is the only past tense in the English language that is subject-specific, and there is no good reason why it should be so. It is a completely useless, arbitrary and pointless rule. > > What other verb has a different past tense depending on the subject? None that I’m aware of. It’s not as if there is any subtle difference in meaning or possibility of confusion. The distinction serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. So English has some historical irregular verbs, forms that do not fit the standard format. Tracing the language shows a slow adaptation of these irregular forms into the regular pattern. I think this is possibly one of those that is stuck in the middle. “Hung” being an irregular verb, “hanged” being a regular form, and trying to wiggle between the two. Another one, and one that I got called out on in high school, is “dove” as a past tense of “dive”. “I dove into the pool.” Dialectally that is acceptable, but some people freak out over it. > [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > I’ve noticed this is extremely common on dating websites. More often than not, the girl’s picture will be titled “My Sister and I” or “My Friends and I”, instead of “…and me” Someone already pointed out, if it is just a caption, then either form is acceptable because it is a phrase and not a sentence. “My Sister and I are shown here.” “This is My Sister and me.” > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > No, it is the subject of a passive mode verb, but still the subject. > > Between you and I, my pet peeve is people who don’t know when to use “me” (and other oblique pronouns). I read somewhere that even Shakespeare did this on occasion. Poets get a pass on these things, because they are trying to fit meter and rhyme and stuff. > [@pulykamell](#): > > “First homerun of the season,” though, doesn’t set off any bells for me. Especially if the person typically makes several home runs in a season, so there’s level of expectation for more to come. > [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Becoming boats, how can you become a boat? 😉 > [@stpauler](#): > > I should _ **of** _ never opened this thread. While written that way it is incorrect, there is a verbal form that sounds the same but is correct: “I should\*\*\*'ve\*\*\* never opened this thread.” I think the “should of” format is confusion that arose around “should’ve”. > [@Leaffan](#): > > The past tense of plead is not pled; it is pleaded. He pleaded guilty. Another [irregular form](http://painintheenglish.com/case/4191)from the 16th century: > [@](#): > > “‘Pled,’ dating from the 16th century, is nearly obsolete in British English, except as a dialectical word. Nor is it considered quite standard in American English, though it is a common variant in legal usage.” > That the word “pled” has fallen out of favor is unlikely part of some “grammar correctness” putsch. It seems far more likely that American news organizations are simply adapting to the global marketplace by adopting the more widely accepted usage. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/67 "2013-03-01T21:01:27Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I got a taste of this in high school French class (in Hawaii), circa 1968. We had to read a very abridged version of _La Tulipe Noire_. There was some passage in there about somebody being angry with somebody else. > > But in the phrase [somebody was] angry with [somebody], the French word for “with” was “contra”. > > The teacher explained that “contra” usually means “against”, but in this case it means “with”. > > I thought the French had it right the first time. Saying somebody is “angry against” someone actually makes a lot more sense that saying somebody is “angry with” someone. Nitpick: I think the word you mean is _contre_, as in _se fâcher contre [quelqu’un]_. _Contra_ is used in Spanish and Portuguese (although not in that particular verb expression, I don’t think). ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/68 "2013-03-01T21:16:07Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > The past tense of plead is not pled; it is pleaded. He pleaded guilty. Similarly, outside of the Southern US, the past tense of drag is not drug, it is dragged. Some even try to throw in two past participles. i.e. “He had drugged the dresser down the hall.” Cecil addresses the usage of [“He had got some” vs “He had gotten some”?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/258/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some) here but it does not extent to all verbs. My pet peeve is my wife always phrases questions in the negative. i.e. “Should you not be leaving for work?” or “Aren’t you not supposed to be there for 7am?” ---
**Author:** ![senpai71](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7993a0/32.png) [@senpai71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senpai71)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/69 "2013-03-01T21:16:27Z")
distrust/mistrust. Is there any difference? I used to be a grammar stickler, but then I just couldn’t be bothered any more. Except by the less/fewer debate. ---
**Author:** ![senpai71](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7993a0/32.png) [@senpai71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senpai71)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/70 "2013-03-01T21:18:44Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > My dad used to joke that if we conjugate swim-swam-swum and sing-sang-sung then it should be hing-hang-hung. So “hung” should be the past perfect of the verb “to hing”. “They call them fingers but I never see them fing” - Otto Mann (The Simpsons) ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/71 "2013-03-01T21:18:51Z")
One of my little joys in life is to take note of occasions where someone uses less with a count noun and no one complains. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/72 "2013-03-01T21:26:47Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > My pet peeve is people who don’t understand that language is idiomatic, not generated by logic gates. “I couldn’t care less,” “better than ever,” “literally” meant as “really,” and so on are totally fine usages, if you’re a human being and not an android. > [@Leaffan](#): > > The past tense of plead is not pled; it is pleaded. He pleaded guilty. I tend to let go of mistakes made that follow other rules. If some verbs are lead/led and feed/fed, then go ahead, make it plead/pled. (And for that matter, shouldn’t it be plea/pleaed to begin with? 😃 ) However “could care less” is not based on following correct or irregular rules, it’s based on mishearing of the actual words and not only getting it wrong, getting it the opposite of what one meant (or should that be meaned? 😃 ). It is similar to the above-mentioned “could of” and other mishearings such as “for all intensive purposes.” It is just objectively wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Corner\_Case](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/corner_case/32/234_2.png) [@Corner\_Case](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corner_Case)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/73 "2013-03-01T21:37:05Z")
‘Next’ - “Take the next exit, honey”. Do you mean the exit coming up or the one after that? “I’ll call you next Thursday” when it’s Saturday… When the item is subjectively (or objectively) further away than the previous one, people tend to use ‘next’, but I’m always still wondering which one is meant. “He’s second to none” - What a horrible position in which to be! Of the entire field of participants, he is second to absolutely no one, where ‘no one’ would presumably have finished last if there were such a person, because ‘no one’ or ‘none’ would never finish and never score. Irregardless, I can understand the other interpretation. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/74 "2013-03-01T21:38:35Z")
> [@moriah](#): > > It is similar to the above-mentioned “could of” and other mishearings such as “for all intensive purposes.” It is just objectively wrong. You make my heart hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/75 "2013-03-02T02:17:50Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > That is Steven Pinker’s take on the phrase. I’m not sure I completely agree, but he’s right that the intonation of “I could care less” is generally different from a straight reading. Most often, it’s “I could CARE LESS,” with a drawn out “care” and “less.” That said, I’ve heard it with a straight intonation, and I’m not convinced it’s an intentionally sarcastic phrase, either. I don’t think it matters, idiom is idiom, there’s no need to justify it or make sense of it. Indeed–idiom is idiom, I agree. More importantly, there’s no need to justify any linguistic formation. The discussion of its possible provenance is just interesting trivia. If it’s a shortening of another phrase, that’s fine. There’s no such thing as objectively correct or incorrect linguistic formation, any more than there’s an objectively correct way to hold a violin bow, or an objectively correct way to sing lullabies. The most reasonable measure of successful language use is whether the construction conveys the intended denotations, connotations, and aesthetics that the speaker intended to convey to the intended audience. Sometimes that’s best done through idiom, sometimes through slang, sometimes through literal speech, and sometimes through a primal, gutteral scream. > [@moriah](#): > > However “could care less” is not based on following correct or irregular rules, it’s based on mishearing of the actual words and not only getting it wrong, getting it the opposite of what one meant (or should that be meaned? 😃 ). It is similar to the above-mentioned “could of” and other mishearings such as “for all intensive purposes.” It is just objectively wrong. Not based on rules? It’s based on standard English grammar, with a meaning that makes sense both sarcastically and idiomatically. There’s no other rules that it needs to follow. Anyone who insists on imposing additional rules is deliberately obfuscating language; to the extent that there’s any applicable objective rule, it’s “knock it off with the obfuscation.” Frankly, I’d find objections to “I could care less” a lot more convincing from people who also object to the second-person-singular “you” and to the word “children.” ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/76 "2013-03-02T04:49:00Z")
I blame English teachers in the U.S. for causing the use of less instead of when fewer is correct. For a long time they taught that the difference between them was that one was used for quantities and the other for amounts. According to dictionaries (such as most here: [http://www.onelook.com/](http://www.onelook.com/) ) the words amount and quantity are synonyms. It’s hard to remember the difference when the teachers says they’re synonymous, so many people just go with the shorter, easier less as the default. The idea of teaching it’s fewer if they’re counted and less if it’s not counted is great, but recent. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/77 "2013-03-02T04:51:25Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > I blame English teachers in the U.S. for causing the use of less instead of when fewer is correct. I don’t; again, if anyone’s to blame in this case, it’s English teachers for making a big deal out of nothing. The circumstances under which the use of “less” instead of “fewer” causes confusion are vanishingly rare, and when they do occur, a word or two will suffice to clarify. ---
**Author:** ![skine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@skine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skine)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/78 "2013-03-02T06:13:53Z")
I love istartedi’s signature on Slashdot, “For all intensive purposes, ‘whom’ is no longer a word. That begs the question, ‘who cares’?” That said, my most recent pet peeve is people who don’t use commas. I’ve just finished reading the Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones) books, and Martin does not use commas with introductory prepositional phrases. Most of the time it’s still easy to understand the sentence. Concerning ASoIaF readers who don’t take care might have to reread a sentence to make sense of it. ---
**Author:** ![JBDivmstr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b4bc9f/32.png) [@JBDivmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBDivmstr)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/79 "2013-03-02T11:03:43Z")
OH… MY… GAWD! It’s just too much! I mean, I’m all for correct spelling and grammar, but where does it end? Is it just me, am I the only one that thinks the ‘rules of grammar’ (as far as the english language is concerned) are just totally insane? How in the world can a person be expected to remember all of that?! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/80 "2013-03-02T16:49:20Z")
It seems to me that using the wrong word (as in “for all intensive purposes”) isn’t really a mistake of grammar, per se. The vast majority of the pet peeves I can think of, as well as the ones I see posted here (including “for it’s own sake”, “This is a photo of my sister and I”, and “I could care less”) are actually malapropisms, not grammar mistakes. The latter, “I could care less” also belongs to the category of fractured idioms, along with “You can’t break an omelet.” and “The proof is in the pudding.” which should be “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” and “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”, respectively. A real grammar mistake would something like using an adjective where you should have used a noun. I’m having a hard time coming up with any examples of this, other than cases where someone is speaking out loud and abandons a sentence in the middle, such as “I was going to the – bloody hell what is that noise?” I suppose taking a phrase like “compact car” and shortening it to “compact” would be a good example. You’ve dropped the noun part and you continue to use the adjective all by itself as if it were a noun. But it would be very rare for that to be listed as a pet peeve, I think. Oh! I just thought of one! I hate it when people say “I feel badly”. The verb “to feel” links the subject with an adjective, as in “I feel hot”, “I feel hungry”, and “I feel bad”. Replacing these adjectives with adverbs gives us “I feet hotly”, “I feel hungrily”, and “I feel badly”, all of which are wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669.md?page=5)