In my junior year of high school, my (very strict) English teacher teacher was going over some common mistakes native English speakers make. One such mistake was using hanged vs. hung. She said when you do your laundry and put your wet clothes on the clothesline, they are “hung”. When a death row prisoner is executed at the gallows, he is “hanged”. Not “hung”. “Things cannot be hanged. Men cannot be hung.”

There was a brief silence and then, yadda, yadda, yadda, two of my classmates got sent to the vice principal.