Getting the hang of it?

Pictures are hung.

Yes, it did ought to be that, didn't it? Perhaps people started off by saying "hanged, drawn and quartered" but the two "d" sounds ran together and the vowel then mutated.

Quite honestly, I don't really want to be saying it very often, though - not a nice thing to think about.

No, I think the correct thing is 'hung' simply because 'hanged' means death and the awful execution for treason meant that the man had still to be alive when he was cut down and disembowelled.Shudder.

That's an interesting thought roses

writingexplained.org/hanged-vs-hung-difference

This sets out the difference between the two usages if anybody is interested.

^A good mnemonic to remember the difference is the following sentence,

Curtains are hung and people are hanged.
This echoes what I said above, to use hung with inanimate objects like curtains, but to use hanged to refer to death by hanging^

Yes, this is almost as I said except I used the example of a picture.

But why then is it almost invariably 'hung, drawn and quartered ' when it ought to be 'hanged' ?

Didn't Judges used to codemn a prisoner 'to be hung by the neck until dead'? I don't think they said 'hanged'.

condemn

I understand, that this is the format, but like all of us here, have clearly never heard it in a court

The sentence of this court is that you will be taken from here to the place from whence you came and there be kept in close confinement until [date of execution], and upon that day that you be taken to the place of execution and there hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy upon your soul

Ah, wrong then! Still, like JackyB I don't really want to dwell on it, but I think roses is probably right.

It is hung, drawn and quartered because it was not death by hanging. The point is you were strung up alive when the rest of it happened!

What a gruesome preoccupation OP has set in motion.

However. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered

Oddly enough it was posts from you and DJ. on another thread which set me thinking your use of 'hung, drawn and quartered' didn't sound grammatically correct DB

Ain't that ironic?

Well, we're getting the hang of it now Anya

N.B......never commit treason!