# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/101 "2013-03-04T20:02:08Z")
For malapropisms, there’s “you’ve got another thing coming”. No, it should be “you’ve got another _think_ coming”, as in “If you _think_ that \_\_\_\_, you’ve got another _think_ coming.” And then there’s _duct_ tape. ---
**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 4, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/102 "2013-03-04T20:06:52Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > For malapropisms, there’s “you’ve got another thing coming”. No, it should be “you’ve got another _think_ coming”, as in “If you _think_ that \_\_\_\_, you’ve got another _think_ coming.” The expression, “that’s the thing, though” clearly proves that intangibles can be things and therefore “You’ve got another thing coming,” is just as correct as “You’ve got another think coming,” as a think would be a thing. ---
**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 4, 2013, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/103 "2013-03-04T20:09:18Z")
> [@Thuringwethil](#): > > My pet peeve is the increasing tendency to substitute “enormity” for “enormous” (or “enormousness”). The former refers to monstrous evil while the other refers to size. I realize that dictionaries are now moving toward conflating the two (the online Mirriam-Webster dictionary has “the quality or state of being huge” as the third definition for “enormity”. I realize that dictionaries are descriptive rather than prescriptive but I don’t think these two should become synonyms. I know I’m like the Freakin Worker’s Vanguard Descriptivist Party and all, but I agree with this one. “Enormity” is a lovely word, and no other word has the same meaning; “monstrous” is about as close as we can get. It makes me sad if we lose this word’s meaning. On the other hand, there’s no common word to talk about the massive size of something. “Immensity” is the closest I can think of. Maybe we just need to get that word into common parlance. ---
**Author:** ![JBDivmstr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b4bc9f/32.png) [@JBDivmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBDivmstr)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/104 "2013-03-04T20:11:54Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > to me it’s always been “sherbet.” when i hear “sherbert” i cringe. Sher_ **bert** _! Sher_ **bert** _! Sher_ **bert** _! ---
**Author:** ![DirkGntly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@DirkGntly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DirkGntly)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/105 "2013-03-04T20:32:58Z")
> [@JBDivmstr](#): > > Sher_ **bert** _! Sher_ **bert** _! Sher_ **bert** _! I really reach you, man! (Wait, wrong word, wrong forum…) ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/106 "2013-03-04T22:17:56Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I say sherbert and carmel and anyone who has a problem with that is cordially invited to buy their own damn desserts. If you are buying me sherbet and caramel you may call them whatever you like and still earn my love and affection. But if you say “sherbert” there is nothing I can do to prevent myself from desiring, at least a little, to hit you with a shovel. As C. S. Lewis said, “Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.” With a shovel, I’m sure he meant to write. 😃 ---
**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 4, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/107 "2013-03-04T22:33:45Z")
As long as you don’t actually hit me with a shovel, I think we’ll be ok. I suspect you’d be apoplectic within minutes, though as I don’t know anyone IRL who says ʃərbət. ---
**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 5, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/108 "2013-03-05T00:26:00Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > As long as you don’t actually hit me with a shovel, I think we’ll be ok. I suspect you’d be apoplectic within minutes, though as I don’t know anyone IRL who says ʃərbət. Sure, but there’s gotta be someone who does, althoughI’ve never heard it pronounced without the second “r,” either. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/109 "2013-03-05T01:11:34Z")
Affect and Effect Lazy buggers use one or the other for everything and don’t care about the difference. “It was an affective message.” Impact versus Affect or Effect Business-ese: “You had an impactful message in today’s meeting.” Really? Did the message hit with the impact of a baseball hitting the catcher’s mitt? ---
**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 5, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/110 "2013-03-05T01:15:55Z")
> [@carnut](#): > > Business-ese: “You had an impactful message in today’s meeting.” Really? Did the message hit with the impact of a baseball hitting the catcher’s mitt? Metaphorically, yeah. My problem with “impact” as a verb isn’t that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s that it’s used lazily, used to juice up drab and lifeless presentations, like dousing overcooked noodles in pesto. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/111 "2013-03-05T02:08:04Z")
> [@Stealth\_Potato](#): > > But if you say “sherbert” there is nothing I can do to prevent myself from desiring, at least a little, to hit you with a shovel. Agreed. The only person who should say “sherbert” is Ernie. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/112 "2013-03-05T02:30:09Z")
And then there’s “begs the question.” It had a very different meaning back in Philosophy 101. And there’s no sense in which we need an equivalent of “raises the question.” At first it was defended as stronger than “raises the question.” I begrudging accepted that, but it was very short-lived. Now the two terms are synonymous, and the damage is done. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/113 "2013-03-05T05:17:13Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Sure, but there’s gotta be someone who does, althoughI’ve never heard it pronounced without the second “r,” either. This could be addressed in one of those threads about rhotic-speakers. In much of England, for instance, the ‘r’ sound is like a semi-vowel, where you hear it much less than in the US. “Park”, to a rhotic American, would sound like “pahk”, for example. Hence, the diphthong-rhotic-speakers (e.g., New England) _are_ saying “sherbert”, but the ‘r’ becomes part of the vowel sound (in fact, I am not sure but it might sound like “shehbeht” to a rhotic-speaker), which may have influenced broader American speech patterns. “Sherbe **r** t” would sound over-rhoticized to me, but I would need additional motivation for violent enormity. The usage (not actually grammar) that annoys me is “flout”, as in “the brazen speeder flaunted the law”. ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/114 "2013-03-05T05:22:48Z")
> [@shijinn](#): > > argh, “I could care less” needs to die in a fire. it does not reflect well on the language to have both the positive and negative of the same construction of a phrase to mean the same thing! Hear, hear! > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > You must think you’re pretty hot, huh? Or maybe you’re cool. > > Or, to address it more directly, do you think you’re accurately understanding why the idiom works? Yeahhhh…SURE you are. No, you’re not. > > When there’s a positive and negative of the same construction of a phrase to mean the same thing, there’s a pretty good chance that one of the constructions is sarcastic. They do not mean the same thing. They mean entirely different things. They’re being _used_ to mean the same thing, but that usage is incorrect, not because it’s being used sarcastically, but because it isn’t understood by the user. > [@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. This. A thousand times, this. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > 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. > > 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.” Absolute nonsense. _I could care less_ is not an idiom in the sense that _all of a sudden_ is an idiom. There is no grammatical reason for saying _all of a sudden_ — it’s actually grammatically meaningless. It just happens to be _all of a sudden_ because **that’s the idiom**. _I could care less_ is **not** the idiom. It is a misunderstanding of the idiom; a mistake. Just because a lot of people use it, doesn’t mean it’s correct. Google finds 72,300,000 uses of _more then_, which is eight times the number of uses of _could care less_, at only 9,130,000, and there’s no way in hell you’d say, “That’s language; when people start using _more then_ that way, it means what people mean it to mean!” No, it doesn’t. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I know I’m like the Freakin Worker’s Vanguard Descriptivist Party and all, but I agree with this one. “Enormity” is a lovely word, and no other word has the same meaning; “monstrous” is about as close as we can get. **It makes me sad if we lose this word’s meaning.** > > On the other hand, there’s no common word to talk about the massive size of something. “Immensity” is the closest I can think of. Maybe we just need to get that word into common parlance. This, after chastising those who are dismayed over _couldn’t care less_ being obliterated by complete nonsense. As for my personal pet grammar peeves: [ul] [li]_More/Bigger/Better/Etc. then_[/li][li]_It’s/Its_[/li][li]_Bonafide_[/li][li]_People that_ (it’s _people **who** _)[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/115 "2013-03-05T06:02:45Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > You sure you want the accent on the second syllable there? In both pronunciations, it’s on the first syllable. I use both pronunciations, but it’s definitely “carmel corn” not “caramel corn” in pronunciation. Speaking as someone who grew up on the Carmel ridge line, it’s Car-MELL. ---
**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 5, 2013, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/116 "2013-03-05T06:09:20Z")
> [@](#): > > “I could care less is not the idiom.” Like it or not, it is now an idiom in American English. I personally prefer it to the literal “I couldn’t care less.” Nobody knows exactly why it developed that way. Some, like you, say it was mishearing or laziness. Others say it originated as deliberate irony or sarcasm. A related thought is that the form parallels certain Yiddish constructions. The reason really doesn’t matter. You can scream all you want about how much you hate it, how much it doesn’t make sense, but it is an idiom in AE and it’s not going away. ---
**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 5, 2013, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/117 "2013-03-05T06:20:58Z")
And [here’s another interesting deconstruction of “could care less”](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001209.html), with analogies to forms like “I could give a flying fuck.” But here’s another part that sticks out for me: > [@](#): > > I’ll end by reiterating that “could care less” has nothing to do with teenagers or even youth. It appeared in print more than 30 years ago in the Washington Post, and it’s recently been used by John Kerry, George W. Bush – and me. In the unmonitored speech of Americans of all regions, classes and ages, it’s much more common than the original form “couldn’t care less,” and has been for at least ten years. > > My current guess is that the ratio is about 5 to 1. As I pointed out earlier, “could care less” occurs in the Switchboard corpus and the American-transcribed portion of a (current, as yet unpublished) collection 16 times, to just one occurrence of “couldn’t care less”. A large part of the current collection was transcribed in New Zealand; in this portion, “could care less” occurs 37 times, versus 32 (alleged) instances of “couldn’t care less”. However, I’ve checked 8 of the 32 “couldn’t care less” phrases, and 5 of the 8 are wrongly transcribed. No doubt the New Zealanders heard “couldn’t care less” in those cases, but it’s plain that the American said “could care less.” Applying a similar correction to the rest of the set, we get 85% “could care less” overall in these conversations (73 vs. 13). So, yeah, it’s here to stay and is a solidly entrenched American idiom. ---
**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 5, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/118 "2013-03-05T06:22:47Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Speaking as someone who grew up on the Carmel ridge line, it’s Car-MELL. I was referring to the pronunciation of “caramel.” The three-syllable example has the accent on the second syllable instead of the first. ---
**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 5, 2013, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/119 "2013-03-05T06:26:35Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I could give a damn but I couldn’t give a damn. I’m going to have to be less subtle in the future, I see. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669/120 "2013-03-05T07:24:41Z")
> [@bigbwana](#): > > are actually malapropisms, not mistakes. > > We could nit-pic all day, but I think you should have used “grammatical” mistakes It always happens when someone starts one of these “grammar pet peeve” threads that half of the stuff isn’t really about grammar anyway, but other things like spelling, punctuation, or word choice. It also always happens that the same old list of language points gets trotted out over and over again, which usually includes this one: [QUOTE=bigbwana] “Bring him to the doctor”. I always thought that you brought something to yourself and took (take) some thing to another place. [/quote] However, deixis isn’t always used for strictly spatial reference. It also has affective uses. For example, you can be watching TV, and comment on a celebrity by choosing to say: _I hate that guy_. or _I love this guy_. and in neither case is the choice of _this_ or _that_ meant to reference physical distance. Instead, it indexes sentiment (negative or positive). In the same way, we might say: _Did you know that Aunt Sophie is in the hospital? Let’s bring her some flowers to cheer her up._ We choose _bring_ (rather than _take_) in order _ **to psychologically position ourselves** _ in Aunt Sopie’s place–it’s a way of _empathizing_ with her. There’s nothing “wrong” with that; in fact, it reflects one of those higher-level cognitive engagements that take place with language (and demonstrate why it’s so hard to get computers to use language the way humans do). If you really want to understand the full spectrum of what people do with language, you can’t just fall back on the old one-dimensional dictums, just because they’re simple and easy to explain. It doesn’t do justice to the complexity of language. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-grammar-pet-peeve-hanged-vs-hung/651669.md?page=7)