Talk:hang

PIE root

I'm almost certain that the Proto-Indo-European root for the English term should be *ḱeng- and not *keng-, following the rules of the centum-satem isogloss. Sanskrit and Albanian have palatalized derivatives. I'm going to change it, unless anyone disagrees with me. Jackwolfroven (talk) 04:33, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Couldn't the Sanskrit and Albanian descendants have secondary palatalisation? Sanskrit is known to have palatalised certain consonants before -e-. —CodeCat 04:36, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

It's also very bad form to ask for consensus about a change and then immediately make the change without any kind of discussion. —CodeCat 04:37, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Hung vs hanged

I have been told that in almost all cases, the past of this verb is "hung", except capital punishment... hence the saying "people are hanged and pictures are hung".

Yup, though 'hung' has always been an alternative in the execution sense. Garik 00:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The article currently mentions this under "usage notes", but is there any authority for this distinction? It would be nice if we could say that, for example, some style guides recommend one versus the other, or some survey has been done of usage, or so on, rather than an ad hoc recommendation. --24.167.65.213 08:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

In the usage notes it states "in Old English there were separate words for transitive (whence hanged) and intransitive (whence hung)." but the transitive verb in Old English was a strong verb while the intransitive use was a weak verb, so that explanation doesn't make sense. It seems more likely that it was simply an archaism preserved in legal language, but that's just a guess. I'm taking out the part about Old English, though, since it conflicts with the actual Old English usage XinaNicole (talk) 23:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

---

hang

Sense "(transitive) To place on a hook" redundant with previous "(transitive) To cause (something) to be suspended". I mean, it's a subset of the previous, but I don't think anyone uses "hang" to mean "place on a hook, to the exclusion of suspending it by other means": no one would say "I said to hang it, not to suspend it, so why didn't you put it on a hook?".—msh210℠ 23:27, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Delete. Equinox 21:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

lol, agree with msh; delete. 50 Xylophone Players talk 21:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Delete per nom, unless it can actually be cited -- which, per nom, seems quite unlikely. -- Visviva 12:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I asked you to hang your coat, so why is it still hanging on the chair?

Keep. DAVilla 12:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that that's a social-knowledge thing, not a meaning of the word. Meaning, when someone says "hang a coat", especially when he asks someone to hang a coat, he means on a hook (or hanger), even though the word hang doesn't mean that.​—msh210℠ 00:48, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

How can the word not mean that, if that's how it's used? In such cases, hang means to hang up neatly, on a hook or hanger or however it should be. If someone were to say "dangle", "drape", "droop", or "suspend a coat", it wouldn't mean the same thing. DAVilla 06:59, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Consider this analogue: Someone tells his kid "take out the garbage". He means for the kid to take the garbage from inside the house to outside the house and put it in an outdoor garbage bin. But the meaning of "take out the garbage" is to take the garbage from inside the house to outside the house; that the kid is then expected to put it in a garbage bin is not because that's the meaning of the words spoken but because that's the way garbage is taken out. Likewise here: if a parent asks a kid to hang his coat, he means to put it on a hanger or hook not because that's the meaning of "hang your coat" but because that's how one hangs a coat. Another analogue, in case you didn't like my first: Someone tells his underling "make ten copies of this report, one for each person at the meeting": the underling then knows to copy them onto white paper. Not because "make copies" precludes fuchsia paper, but merely because that's how one makes copies (in that office). If a parent tells a kid "dangle your coat" then of course he'll be justified in not hanging it on a hanger, but that's not because "hang" means on a hanger: it's merely because the instruction was deliberately worded oddly and therefore implies that the action should/can be odd. Here's an exception, which shows that "suspend" and "hang" are the same: If a kid knows his parent likes to use weird words, and the parent frequently says things like "set up your bed" (instead of "make") or "fix dinner" (in areas where that's not the idiom, as a deliberate oddity), then the kid should certainly hang the coat on a hanger if the parents says "suspend your coat".​—msh210℠ 17:27, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

If you can find documented use of suspend to mean hang clothing properly then we should include it. I also think that copy should say "especially on white paper" and that take out the garbage is idiomatic. DAVilla 04:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Fwiw, the sense was added in this diff.—msh210℠ 20:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge definitions. --EncycloPetey 17:32, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Deleted (somewhat merged).​—msh210℠ 18:27, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Possible error in citation

There is a citation using the word "tarletan", which I think should be "tarlatan". I can't be sure because I can only find the scanned text (where it might be a scanno) and not the original digitised page. Equinox ◑ 17:39, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

1911 Alexander MacDonald citation

...about somebody not "see[ing] the hang" of something. I've added this to the "grip, understanding" sense (like "he soon got the hang of it") but perhaps it properly belongs under the sense of the smallest care, (giving) a damn. Equinox ◑ 18:07, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

hang off

Chambers 1908 has this verb phrase, defined as "to let go, to hold off". Anybody familiar with this? Equinox ◑ 19:56, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

(intransitive) elapse slowly

to pass by or elapse slowly Time hung heavily when she was away. Cf hang heavy--Backinstadiums (talk) 16:26, 19 July 2021 (UTC)