Learn English – ‘The picture hung crooked on the wall’

expressionsgrammaticality

Is it more correct to say 'The picture hung crooked on the wall' or 'The picture hung crookedly on the wall'? My instinct is that the first one sounds better to me as a native speaker, but someone else I was talking to was convinced that only the second is correct. What's better here?

Best Answer

If you imagine a pair of commas added:

The picture hung, crooked, on the wall"

you can see that crooked is an adjective.

It's not too harmful perhaps to then take the commas away.

Crooked describes the picture; crookedly, how it hangs.