"Hanged" vs "Hung"

[HornungTheHelpful]

I've noticed recently that it appears to be increasingly common to refer to a person as having been "hung" rather than "hanged". I find it really jarring. OED Online confirms that "hung" is not the past tense of "hang" where it refers to the punishment of hanging.

Presumably at some point the OED will embrace it so I may as well get used to it now. But AIBU to ask if anyone else finds it a jarring form of speech? (please take as read all of the necessary caveats about how it's a nice problem to have, if it bothers me I should just ignore it, why am I such a snob about language, I've started a sentence with a conjunction so can I really criticise etc, etc).

If it makes you feel any better, I have been that pedantic twat. I felt absolutely dreadful, but couldn't stop the words falling fron my mouth 😒

Hanged as far as I am concerned. Hung is only in relation to pictures and paintings on walls, some washing and my fella is also well hung but when I end his life for pissing me off he will be well hanged.

I'm putting my hand up to admit that I drew this to the attention of the OP on that thread. It irritates me when hung is used incorrectly. Don't get me started on 'should of'!
I worked with an individual whose formal letters were typed in exactly the way she spoke. It was embarrassing to read them.

I once had the pleasure of working for an idiot who thought punctuation made his letters look untidy. Only the occasional full stop acceptable, otherwise a Joycean ramble through his vocabulary. Utterly barking. Didn't seem to have any idea that those commas, and their friends, had a useful and necessary function.

I just say 'ligatured'

You are my people (and sorry for your loss).

Shouldn't it technically be 'drawn, hung and quartered', since one is drawn to the gallows before being hanged, and then quartered afterwards (whether dead or not)?

Actually I think you are correct. The drawing was being dragged on a hurdle to the place of execution. It was part of the overall humiliation of being partially strangled and then having to see your own genitalia being removed etc. What wonderful times it must have been, not.

Hanged sounds pedantic. I prefer hung.

Yup. Heard almost daily on the Scottish news. Dedicated and energetic pedant here, but this is fine with me.

My mother used to say in her experience men are not often "hung", and would then roll her eyes in pretend shock.

cough - don't we all dear.

It's attention to detail as required when different words have different meanings, although often wrongly used for the same meaning.

Like in tax and law, the word "gifted" has a specific legal meaning and to say "gave" just isn't the same. You wouldn't say you were "gifted" a new pullover at Christmas, you'd say you were given it and the giver "gave" it to you.

To some, these things may not appear important, but in formal settings, they're highly relevant.

I was under impression the drawn bit referred to the disemboweling while still alive part ie after being hung till nearly dead - rather than the taken in pillory to the executions site as "normal" hanging had that as well and the hung drawn and quarters sentence were an especially nasty measure usually for high treason in middle ages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered

The use of the word "drawn", as in "to draw", has caused a degree of confusion. One of the Oxford English Dictionary's definitions of draw is "to draw out the viscera or intestines of; to disembowel (a fowl, etc. before cooking, a traitor or other criminal after hanging)", but this is followed by "in many cases of executions it is uncertain whether this, or [to drag (a criminal) at a horse's tail, or on a hurdle or the like, to the place of execution; formerly a legal punishment of high treason], is meant. The presumption is that where drawn is mentioned after hanged, the sense is as here."[37] Historian Ram Sharan Sharma arrived at the same conclusion: "Where, as in the popular hung, drawn and quartered [use] (meaning facetiously, of a person, completely disposed of), drawn follows hanged or hung, it is to be referred to as the disembowelling of the traitor."[38] Sharma is not the only historian to support this viewpoint as the phrase, "hanged until dead before being drawn and quartered", occurs in a number of relevant secondary publications.[39][40] The historian and author Ian Mortimer disagrees. In an essay published on his website, he writes that the separate mention of evisceration is a relatively modern device, and that while it certainly took place on many occasions, the presumption that drawing means to disembowel is spurious. Instead, drawing (as a method of transportation) may be mentioned after hanging because it was a supplementary part of the execution.[41]

However seems even that is under dispute.

Yes, I think it's a bit ambiguous. A traitor was always described as being 'drawn to the gallows', but the actual removing of the innards was glossed over. So maybe the 'drawn' just covers both aspects?

However, many people who were hanged and quartered didn't have their innards taken out first, so they were just 'drawn, hanged and quartered' in that order.

However, many people who were hanged and quartered didn't have their innards taken out first, so they were just 'drawn, hanged and quartered' in that order.

I suspect it lay/normal people hearing phrase and not going into details about what was actually happening - and using it indiscriminately and confusing meanings.

(Mutter darkly about media in covid times going on about UK holidays being staycations so we now have two slightly different meaning for word in common usage)

If people didn't have their innards taken out first, then they were hanged and quartered only. Surely "drawn" means removal of innards"?

(Unless they were drawn afterwards, reading @Vroomfondleswaistcoat .)

Those who say it wrong should definitely be hung.

Yep. It's just ignorance.

"Murderers, traitors and pirates are hanged. Everything else is hung."

My English master c 1971.

We should bring back hanging drawing and quartering for the worst kind of criminals.

You mean as a kind of job creation scheme for them? I'm sure they'd be great at it.

What is this thread!!!
I have lost an extremely close family member to suicide or as you all put it hanged or hung himself! I find this thread triggering!

I hate to disabuse you of the notion, but it doesn’t. “Gifted”, other than as an adjective to describe a “gifted dancer” or “gifted singer” etc is just poor English. It is often misused by people trying to sound legalistic, but it doesn’t have a legal meaning and always makes me roll my eyes when I see it in instructions. Re tax - a gift is usually (in all cases of which I am aware) a transfer or disposal for no value - equating with its everyday meaning.

I assume from your user name you work in tax. Feel free to look it up. I do not believe the word “gifted” as meaning “given for no value” (or indeed at all) appears anywhere in the UK tax code.

Also making a joke is not funny or appropriate