I Hung the Picture of the Man Being Hanged

I have a question.

When you put your clothes up on a line to dry, you “hung” some clothes.

When you string up the guy who robbed the bank and general store, you “hanged” him.

So, my question is, is hanging the only word whose regularity is based on whether or not you’re ending someone’s life?

After some thought and positing that "hung" is the word used when you hang something continuously, Jordan overachieved and, unlike me, actually did some research:

Some reference books say hung isn't wrong, just less customary, when referring to past executions, and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary says that hung is becoming more common—but the majority of books agree that the standard English word is hanged when you are talking about killing people by dangling them from a rope.

It seemed a little curious to me that there would be two past-tense forms of the word hang that differ depending on their meaning, so I did a little research and found out that in Old English there were two different words for hang (hon and hangen), and the entanglement of these words (plus an Old Norse word hengjan) is responsible for there being two past-tense forms of the word hang today (1). 1. Burchfield, R. W., ed. The New Fowler's Modern English Usage. Third edition. New York: Oxford, 1996, p. 349.

Thank you, Jordan! Class, let's also thank Jordan for the title of the post.

(Thaaaaaank youuuuu, Joooooordan.)

So I guess I was right.

The correct usage of the past tense of "hang" depends entirely upon whether you're hanging a guy or his underwear.

Now we know.