HANGING INDEPENDENCE

The word independence is basically a mess of affixations. It's from French independance, in which the suffix -ance was attached to the preexisting word independant, in which the prefix in- (sort of like "not" in this situation) was attached to the preexisting word dependant. This is from the verb dependre, which meant "depend" or "belong" and in which the prefix de- (which was used to create antonyms) was attached to verb pendre, or "to hang", since something hanging depends on whatever's supporting it. Pendre is from its Latin cognate pendere, from Proto-Italic pendeo and finally from the Proto-Indo-European pend, which meant "to stretch or pull", because something hanging is quite obviously being pulled by a rope or stretched out by gravity. The redcoats should've used this reasoning to explain why all who wanted independence should hang. Also, whoever attached two prefixes and two suffixes to pedre should hang.