Oddly, there are two past-tense forms of the verb hang. Hanged is for people and animals you intend to kill, and hung is for everything else.

Remember to use hanged to talk about killing people by dangling them from a rope by thinking of the Old West. Hangings were common, and “I’ll be hanged” was a common exclamation. Think of a prospector expressing surprise about being framed for a crime by saying, “I’ll be hanged!” He’s using it as an exclamation, and he’s probably literally correct.

I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged.
-Falstaff referring to his friend Poins in Shakespeare’s Henry IV

You can remember that hung is for things such as curtains, disco balls, and stockings by thinking of a line from “’Twas The Night Before Christmas”: “The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.”

 The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.
-The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

We have to deal with two forms because there were at least two separate words for hang in Old English. They eventually merged into one, but the separate past tense forms remained. Hung became the word for most uses, but the losing form (hanged) stuck around for executions, probably because it was used in legal language, which is less likely to change than common language.

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Reprinted from Grammar Girl's 101 Misused Words You'll Never Confuse Again by Mignon Fogarty with permission of the publisher, St. Martin's Press. Copyright © 2011 by Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Sneaked and Snuck are both past-tense forms of the verb to sneak. If you are in Britain or want to play it safe in America, use sneaked.

You sneaked out of your house? Where were you going?
-Robert Duncan McNeill playing Lieutenant Tom Paris in the TV show Star Trek: Voyager

Snuck has gained so much ground in the United States that some experts already say it is as acceptable as sneaked, and the trend is likely to continue to the point where all experts agree. Nevertheless, for now, snuck still irks some people, and conscientious writers and speakers avoid it.

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Reprinted from Grammar Girl's 101 Misused Words You'll Never Confuse Again by Mignon Fogarty with permission of the publisher, St. Martin's Press. Copyright © 2011 by Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Yeah is an informal way of saying yes.

 Yeah, we look forward to our after-game treat.

Yea is another way of saying yes or indeed. It is most commonly used when talking about voting.

 Ten people voted nay and three people voted yea on replacing oranges with pizza.

Yay is an exclamation of excitement, joy, or happiness – it is similar to hooray. Remember, though, some people shout the word yes when they are excited too, so it’s not necessarily inappropriate to use yea or yeah in such instances.

 We’ll have orange slices after the game. Yay!

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Reprinted from Grammar Girl's 101 Misused Words You'll Never Confuse Again by Mignon Fogarty with permission of the publisher, St. Martin's Press. Copyright © 2011 by Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Bad is an adjective and badly is an adverb, so usually you use badly to modify a verb because most verbs are action verbs:

No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly.
 -Clark Gable playing Rhett Butler in the movie Gone with the Wind

There’s an exception, though – you use bad to modify liking verbs such as be, is, and was:

What Saleem did was bad enough. Becoming like him would be worse.
-Cote de Pablo playing Ziva David in the TV show NCIS: Naval Criminal
     Investigative Service

When you’re talking about your emotions, the right thing to say is that you feel bad, not that you feel badly, because feel is a linking verb when it refers to your emotions rather than your sense of touch.

Quick and Dirty Tip:
If you can replace a verb with a form of to be (such as is or was) without dramatically changing the meaning of the sentence, it is a linking verb.

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Reprinted from Grammar Girl's 101 Misused Words You'll Never Confuse Again by Mignon Fogarty with permission of the publisher, St. Martin's Press. Copyright © 2011 by Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Farther refers to physical distance and further refers to metaphorical, or figurative, distance.

 Prof. Robert Crawford: Perhaps your skills do reach farther than basketball.

 Jamal: “Further.”

 Prof. Robert Crawford: What?

Jamal: You said that my skills reached “farther” than basketball. “Farther” relates to distance, “further” is a definition of degree. You should have said “further.”

 Prof. Robert Crawford: Are you challenging me, Mr. Wallace?

-Rob Brown (Jamal) and F. Murray Abraham (Professor Crawford) in the movie Finding Forrester

Sometimes it’s not so straightforward. If I’ve read more of a book than you have, I could be farther along (in pages) or further along (in story). When it’s ambiguous like that, you can use either word.

Quick and Dirty Tip:
Remember that farther has the word far in it, and something that is far is usually some physical distance away.

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Reprinted from Grammar Girl's 101 Misused Words You'll Never Confuse Again by Mignon Fogarty with permission of the publisher, St. Martin's Press. Copyright © 2011 by Mignon Fogarty, Inc.