Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 09:24:16 -0700

From: Peter McGraw pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU

Subject: Re: Hanged vs. hung



My usage (likewise acquired, through correction during childhood) is the

same as Dennis's, except I would use "hanged" only transitively -- e.g.,

"They hanged him," or "He was hanged," but "He hung by the neck." (55,

white, grew up on the West Coast but parents from Iowa and Oklahoma.)



Yes, it's prescriptive, but it's also a genuine relic of a historical

pairing of transitive weak verbs and intransitive strong verbs that once

had many more representatives.=20



Peter McGraw

Linfield College

McMinnville, OR=20



On Wed, 16 Oct 1996, Dennis R. Preston wrote:



I believe the old prescriptivist rule is this:

=20

All uses (transitive and intransitive) except one have hang - hung - hung=

..

=20

The exception is with reference to execution by a rope around the neck,

which is (transitive =D5they hanged him=FE or intransitive =D5he hanged b=

y the

neck=FE) hang - hanged - hanged.

=20

You can tell right away it is a prescriptivist rule; it makes you memoriz=

e

stuff that sounds funny (kinda like 'whom'). A dead giveaway.

=20

(You might want to check some usage books or even consult the advice

standard dictionaries give. Ain't y'all got none of them up there in St.

John's? I think I remember right though.)

=20

My rule is much simpler (if you want ot know what a 55+ white, northern

Kentuckian says): hang - hung - hung for everything

=20

I do one exception; if a hanging went off without a hitch, I have a

disinclination to say that the victim was 'well-hung.'

=20

Dennis

=20

=20

=20

As part of my coursework for an upper-division course titled "Th=

e

English

Language," I am currently attempting to discover how the word _hang_ is

currently being used in standard English.

During my research, however, I've encountered one problem: What =

is the

proper

way to write the transitive and intransitive simple past tense forms of =

the

verb _hang_? Is it _hanged_ or _hung_? I appreciate any help that anyone=

can

give me with this.



Sincerely,

Matt Russell

senior English major at St. John's University

=20

Dennis R. Preston

Department of Linguistics and Languages

Michigan State University

East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA

preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu

Office: (517)432-1235

Fax: (517)432-2736

=20