{"id":7033,"date":"2019-06-20T15:15:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T19:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/?p=7033"},"modified":"2019-06-20T15:15:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T19:15:00","slug":"hang-it-up-in-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/hang-it-up-in-english\/","title":{"rendered":"Hang it Up in English"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo courtesy of Pixabay, CCO<\/p><\/div>\n

My wife and I are making a lot of changes at home right now. We\u2019re renovating bathrooms, installing tile and hardwood floors, painting walls. This means that whatever was hanging on the walls has come down. The walls are bare. But, soon, it will be time to put new things up on those walls. Will I hang them, or will they be hung? Will I use a hangar or a hanger? The English language has a hang-up with hanging things.<\/p>\n

Hang is a verb meaning to suspend or elevate something without support from below. I will hang my clothes up to dry.<\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, hang is a verb with an annoying number of meanings and applications. Not as many as run, but quite a few.<\/p>\n

It can mean to decorate walls. Let\u2019s hang the curtains.<\/em><\/p>\n

It can apply to motion. Hang a left at the next street.<\/em><\/p>\n

It also means to droop. You shouldn\u2019t hang your head in shame.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is also a verb meaning to kill something. You are sentenced to hang by the neck until dead.<\/em><\/p>\n

There are more, but it is this last definition which has caused more than a little frustration. You see, while hang has many usages, there are only two past tense forms of the verb hang \u2013 hanged and hung. In almost every instance where you would use the past tense of hang, you would say hung.<\/p>\n