At a Tea Party rally in Asotin, WA, one of the Tea Party speakers had this to say about Senator Patty Murray.
“How many of you have watched the movie Lonesome Dove?,” asked one speaker from the podium. “What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd? What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd. He got hung. And that’s what I want to do with Patty Murray.”
I realize that the Tea Party crowd will no doubt use this as an excuse to tar me as an “elitist”, but I can’t let this go by. The proper way to say the sentence I highlighted in bold is “He was hanged,” not “He got hung.” When referring to the act of being put to death by hanging, hanged, not hung, is the appropriate past tense and past participle.
Additionally, “got” is the past tense of “get.” The most common definition of “get” is “to take possession of.” However, in Lonesome Dove, Jake did not “take possession of” hanged–that wouldn’t make sense. It’s clear that the speaker is trying to use “got” as a passive voice auxiliary, and so the correct word to use is “was.”
I just can’t sit idly by and watch the English language be degraded like that.
As a quick aside, I also feel obligated to point out that the novel Lonesome Dove is far superior to the TV-movie adaptation.
