Can’t Be Agnostic on This

Alabama may get all the press, but trust me: we’ve got plenty of “old-time religion” and megachurches up here in the Midwest. Indiana also has the dubious honor of being the last “northern” state to have a lynching (in 1930).

@al2o3cr: There was at least one high profile lynching on the Eastern Shore in the 30s, though I suppose some consider Maryland to be Southern.

@mellbell: below the Mason-Dixon line, so it’s the South to me … grew up there, and once you’re out of PG , Montgomery, Baltimore. or Ann Arundel counties, you might as well be in Alabama.

@blogenfreude: Sure, Fredneck and all that, but the grouping still rings false to me.

@mellbell: My grouping of counties? May I throw in Calvert ….

@blogenfreude: No, you’re spot on, it’s the grouping of Maryland with, say, South Carolina and Alabama that I find somewhat off.

@mellbell: I remember selling a house in Washington County – back when I did that – and being surprised by the displays of Confederate symbols and the general Southern atmosphere. Lots of stars ‘n bars stuff on pickups.

@blogenfreude: You were a realtor in a previous life?

@mellbell: I was … and I am not proud of that.

Another adventure in stupidity cut short: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/11/29/not-ok-in-ok-judge-permanently-halts-measure-banning-shariah-law/?mod=djemlawblog_h

I have a friend who grew up in Indiana. He says it’s basically the South without the warm climate.

Delaware hung a fellow in the 80’s. He wa a real hard ass and chose the method. He was originally sentenced when hanging was the method but the pharma route was available to him by that time.

http://doc.delaware.gov/information/deathrow_history.shtml

We were officially a Northern state during the civil war and the Mason Dixon line starts between Fenwick Island DE and Ocean City MD to divide Calvert and Penn lands. In practice we have always been a divided state. The southernmost county was a Tory stronghold and the southern two counties were won by Chrissy O in the most recent election. I see too many stars and bars displayed even in my county to suit my liking.

Anderson Indiana is the headquarters of the North American Church of God. Anderson University is a Church of God school. Once the GM-DELCO plant closed down the church was left as the biggest presence in town. It’s a real hotbed of fundamentalist Christianity.

@DElurker: Note to grammar mavens, and you know who you are. When do you use “hanged” as opposed to “hung” in the lynching/execution context?

@Dodgerblue: I think it’s always ‘hanged’ in that context. I save ‘hung’ for Catt.

@Dodgerblue: @Benedick: It should always be “hanged” in that context, but standards have fallen to the point where one almost never sees it used properly. Harrumph.

@Mistress Cynica: Swear to God, lady I always use it that way!

@Mistress Cynica: Setting aside dick jokes for a moment, which I know is a tough ask with this crowd, what is the rule that tells us how to distinguish between “hanged” and “hung.” Is it like “sang” and “sung” — i.e. we sang the song, the song was sung.

@Dodgerblue: Paraphrasing Modern American Usage and thereby avoiding having to get on with some work:

‘Coats and pictures are hung, and sometimes juries. But criminals found guilty of capital offenses are hanged.’ Implying execution. ‘If a person is suspended for amusement or malice and death isn’t intended then, likely, hung is the proper word. ‘… he complained at various times of being attacked by dogs, shot at, beaten with a rake and tortured while being hanged [read ‘hung’] upside down.’ Garner also gives as an example Mussolini’s body being hung [not hanged] from a lamppost.

The capital punishment is a hanging where one is hanged till dead. And though you can hang a keyring on a hook it then becomes hung not hanged. They are different words the meaning of which is kept separate, unlike sing song sung.

That’s how I read it. And, as before noted, I keep ‘hung’ for Catt.

Sorry for my limited education or maybe it is older education. It was HANG, HUNG, HUNG when I went to school, as in: “I wil hang the picture tomorrow”; I hung that picture on the wall yesterday”; and “I have hung many pictures in my lifetime.

HANGED wasn’t used much when I was young and the nuns wouldn’t let us use the word. Now it is listed as an alternative to HUNG in my copy of Websters

Sorry, I’m just the local high school graduate…

@DElurker: My daughter, the English grammar maven, says that “hanged” is only correct in the context of an execution, as Benedick references. Otherwise it’s hang, hung, hung as DE says.

Next nerdy question: does “wrought” have a present tense?

@Dodgerblue: Work.

@Benedick: Get out.

@mellbell: Well, couldn’t you say either “Benedick got all worked up over the uninformed review” or “Benedick got all wrought up over . . .”??

Wrought is a derivation of work. Wrought iron is worked. What hath man wrought? eg made, the second word I’d use. However, I’d avoid ‘wrought’ as anything other than a description of ironwork (woops!)

This is making me think of the old game of finding a word with no opposite. At a dinner party years ago I pissed off everybody when I was presented with the word ‘inept’ as having no opposite. Of course it does: ‘apt’.

@Dodgerblue: @Benedick: I’d just never given it any thought.

Not to be persnickety or anything but the aforementtioned Websters has wrought as the past participle of “worken”, the middle English form of work. Maybe one could say “Benedick has become all wrought up over . . .”??

What is the opposite of persnickety? I don’t know myself but my ex is used as the illustation in another dictionary.