Why is “hanged” used instead of “hung” when referring to executions?
Cause it’s more propah than hung.
Because otherwise people would be telling executioners how well hung their victims were while giggling like schoolgirls, and then where would we be as a society?
Hang \Hang, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Hanged (h?ngd) or Hung; p. pr. & vb. n. Hanging.
Usage: The use of hanged is preferable to that of hung, when reference is had to death or execution by suspension, and it is also more common.
Source: Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
I’d like to emphasize lindsay.reid’s definition.
Hanged is the correct term when referring to an execution. As in, “The murderer was hanged for his crimes.”
Hung is more widely accepted in reference to physically hanging objects. As in, “I hung the laundry on the clothes line.”
I have been told I’m hanged like a horse.
Okay, I haven’t.
hung if i know
hung if you do, hanged if you don’t.
What was the question again?
The murderous porn star was very well-hung, but they hanged him anyway.
dagnab it mussky, i shot my foot off
which one
i dunno they both look the same to me
On a live radio broadcast of ** Gunsmoke **, the hangman said “When I’m finished with a guy, he’s well hung.” The actors, including star William Cannon, could barely get to the end of the scene.
Condemned men are hanged; women are hung.
OK, we seem to have cleared up whether hanged or hung or more proper, but why is hanged considered the correct word?
Hung seems to be a better fit, IMHO
One way to look at it is that there are (nearly) two separate words with different past tense forms. We have hang, hung, hung meaning to suspend any old thing, and hang, hanged, hanged meaning to execute via rope. The latter is a special case of the former, but hasn’t quite been fully divorced from it. Thus dictionaries mention hanged as a preferred form when it means execution rather than listing them as two entirely separate words.
As to why and when the meanings and past tense forms of hang started to separate, that may be unknowable.
It’s difficult to pin down an explanation for why there is a difference, but this site contains a brief list of references for it. The consensus there seems to be that the subtle distinction can be a valuable one for careful users.
Enola Straight
Can you provide a cite to back up the gender difference? It doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere I can find.
Furthermore, since hanged men often die with erections, I suppose you could say they were hanged and hung at the same time!
I’d argue it’s the poorly hung men that are condemmed.
What, no Blazing Saddles references yet?
Charlie: “Bart?! I heard you was hung!”
Bart: “And so I is!”
In The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker, he makes the point that when an irregular verb is given a new role, we usually will conjugate the new word as a regular verb. The example he cites is “fly” with the irregular past tense “flied,” when used in baseball. When you’re talking about a bird flying, its past tense is “flew.” But the word was used in baseball as “a fly ball” and “to fly out.” With “fly out,” it’s a new meaning, so we start over and conjugate it as a regular verb.
I think “hang” in the sense of “execute with a rope” is the same idea.