Talking of Roger Casement being ‘hanged on a comma’, I am reminded of my recent spat with an admired American translator from the French of a notable 20th Century authoress.
I had mildly disputed her translation of the French novelist (‘...both of them had been arrested and hung’)
when I asked: ‘Did the authoress intend to convey the men were “hung” like game-birds to soften the flesh; or “hanged” until they were dead, in the customary usage of that participle?’
I had also asked (re. ‘... the heat in the church had made me nauseous ...’): ‘Did the authoress intend the narrator to convey that he, himself, caused nausea in others, i.e. a dose of Christianity had caused him to become offensive by his own odour?’
The eminent translator’s reply? ‘The distinctions you questioned are actually a matter of British or US English. Hanged (British) and hung (US) are synonymous. When a person is nauseous, he feels sick; when nauseated, something else makes him feel sick.’
Apparently, this American scholar studied at the Sam Goldwyn School of English.
As Dorothy Parker (a celebrated American, I believe) states in the Paris Review (Summer 1956):
‘Sam Goldwyn said, “How’m I gonna do decent pictures when all my good writers are in jail?” Then he added, the infallible Goldwyn, “Don't misunderstand me, they all ought to be hung.” Mr. Goldwyn didn’t know about “hanged.” ’
Oh well. It seems one person in America knows about “hanged”.
