{"id":1002,"date":"2013-07-29T21:29:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-30T03:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=1002"},"modified":"2020-11-25T10:25:26","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T16:25:26","slug":"ill-be-hanged-or-have-i-just-gone-missing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/definitions\/ill-be-hanged-or-have-i-just-gone-missing-2\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ll Be Hanged! Or, Have I Just Gone Missing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several readers responded to Tom Stern’s article The Media Made Me Do It,<\/a> which asked for alternatives to gone missing<\/em>. Interestingly, the overwhelming choice was to simply replace the phrase with missing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is fine in many, perhaps most, cases, e.g., The man was missing<\/em> instead of The man went missing<\/em>. But it’s no help at all in sentences such as The man went missing two days ago<\/em>. For such sentences, we have few options other than disappeared<\/em> or vanished<\/em>, which, as Stern pointed out, sounds as if the man in question were more the victim of a magic trick than a potential tragedy.<\/p>\n

So dig deeper, readers! If you can come up with an inspired alternative to The man went missing two days ago<\/em>, many will thank you for having done our beloved language a great service.<\/p>\n

HANG IT ALL<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speakers and writers who value precision know that the past tense of hang<\/em>, when it means “to put to death using a rope,” is hanged<\/em>, rather than hung<\/em>. This applies to both the active and passive voice: They hanged the prisoner<\/em> and The prisoner was hanged<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For inanimate objects, use hung<\/em>. Under unusual conditions, people also hung<\/em> or are hung<\/em>, e.g., He hung from the tree with one hand<\/em> or He found himself hung upside down<\/em>.<\/p>\n

POP QUIZ<\/strong>
\nSelect the correct word for each sentence.<\/p>\n

1. We hung\/hanged the stockings by the chimney with care.
\n2. The angry mob hung\/hanged the outlaw Gomer Dooley.
\n3. The disgraced prime minister was hung\/hanged from a lamppost in the town square.
\n4. An effigy of the prime minister was hung\/hanged from a lamppost in the town square.
\n5. The man hung\/hanged from the rafters with a rope around his waist.<\/p>\n

POP QUIZ ANSWERS<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. We hung<\/strong> the stockings by the chimney with care.
\n2. The angry mob hanged<\/strong> the outlaw Gomer Dooley.
\n3. The disgraced prime minister was hanged<\/strong> from a lamppost in the town square.
\n4. An effigy of the prime minister was hung<\/strong> from a lamppost in the town square.
\n5. The man hung<\/strong> from the rafters with a rope around his waist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several readers responded to Tom Stern’s article The Media Made Me Do It, which asked for alternatives to gone missing. Interestingly, the overwhelming choice was to simply replace the phrase with missing. This is fine in many, perhaps most, cases, e.g., The man was missing instead of The man went missing. But it’s no help […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-definitions","category-effective-writing","category-humor"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}