hang vs. hung

RonButters at AOL.COM RonButters at AOL.COM
Wed Nov 22 16:05:38 UTC 2006


 A hoary joke that I first heard 50 years ago; "Did you hear about the
plastic surgeon who hung himself?" When I first heard it, I didn't understand it
because I didn't realize that "Man is he hung!" meant his penis was unusually
large--AND because "hung by the neck until dead" seemed perfectly grammatical to
me. "I'll be hanged" was an expression that I did not associate with causing
someone to die by the rope-around-the-neck method.

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