I swear I'm not a pedant...

[Steven Weiss]

but King writing as Jake repeatedly gives the past tense of hang as "hung". Conventionally, people will tell you that, when referring to hanging a person, the past tense is actually "hanged". Obviously, King must know this and I have to assume that it isn't just an in-character mistake on Jake the English teacher's part. (Not to mention it got through the editors.) I was thinking that it must be deliberate; some kind of statement. Is this a trap for the same type of people who think that you can't end a sentence with a preposition? I don't know.

Maybe I'm making way too much of this but I've always known King's liberties with grammar to be intentional and necessary. Thoughts?

[mjs9153]

Maybe just a nod to Cleavon Little,gunslinger..

[GNTLGNT]

...who's hung?....(whoops, sorry....misunderstood question....please carry on, whilst I dust off my Village Idiot bench)...

[tenngolfer]

English is not a strong suit for me (engineering, business, and psychology are more my comfort zone). Could this be emphasizing a regional dialect which sometimes overides proper speech in a relaxed setting, or times of anxiety?

[Todash]

I have a couple of thoughts on this. The first is that language is a living thing--it is the vernacular (no disrespect intended to the OED)--and living spang in the middle of the US (that is, nowhere particularly colorful, as language goes), I've probably heard "hung" used in that sense much more often than "hanged." People do not talk like dictionaries, and while I used to be more (ahem) pedantic, I've grown accustomed to the idea that language is a living thing, the essence of which cannot really be captured completely between the covers of a book of definitions.

My second thought is this: in the first few iterations of The Stand, "candy bar" is spelled as one word, "candybar." I found that maddening, and it made me twitch, but I'm quite certain it was an honest mistake. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[Spideyman]

I tend to think it is written as "hung" because in normal conversations it is often spoken that way.

She hung the wash on the clothesline.
A giant poster was hung on the art gallery wall.

[Todash]

I tend to think it is written as "hung" because in normal conversations it is often spoken that way.

She hung the wash on the clothesline.
A giant poster was hung on the art gallery wall.

Well (and I only know this for sure because I just looked it up in the OED and the New Oxford American Dictionary), those are "correct." But specifically in the instance of being hanged by the neck until dead--what lovely phraseology, no?--"hanged" is listed as the correct term. However, your main point is accurate. People do say that someone was "hung" or that someone "hung himself." In fact, I would venture to say that I hear that more often than "hanged" in that sense.

Wake up, dictionary people. Time to smell the vernacular.

[Todash]

English is not a strong suit for me (engineering, business, and psychology are more my comfort zone). Could this be emphasizing a regional dialect which sometimes overides proper speech in a relaxed setting, or times of anxiety?

Spoken like a true engineer. That's so cute.

[Sepia and Dust]

but King writing as Jake repeatedly gives the past tense of hang as "hung". Conventionally, people will tell you that, when referring to hanging a person, the past tense is actually "hanged".

That's one of the "rules" of English that I refuse to follow. Also, as far as I'm concerned, the word whom is archaic and has ceased to exist in modern usage. Maybe Mr. King has his own list of grammar rebellion.

[Todash]

That's one of the "rules" of English that I refuse to follow. Also, as far as I'm concerned, the word whom is archaic and has ceased to exist in modern usage. Maybe Mr. King has his own list of grammar rebellion.

You can have my "whom" when you take it from my cold, dead ... sentences.

Wait ... that's not right.