MENTORING AVAILABLE starting at $250.00 per month


SPECIAL PRICING AVAILABLE THROUGH MAY 2013


Copy Editing -- 1 cent per word

Deep Editing -- 2 3/4 cents per word


See below left for details and regular pricing.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Lay This Down While I Lie Here

Ah yes, the lie versus lay debacle. Admittedly, this is a pet peeve of mine -- especially when I see the mistake made in New York Times bestsellers... I had a critique partner once who stopped using lie and lay in her writing because she wasn't sure of the difference and didn't want me yelling at her for using them wrong.

Of course, I never yell... :)

BE NOT AFRAID. The whole lie/lay thing is very simple once you do two things: 1. Learn the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb, and 2. Memorize the past tense and past participle of each verb.

Here we go:

A transitive verb is one which requires a direct object. To lay is a transitive verb. You lay something on the table, but you don't lay down. You can lay another person down (physically, you're laying him on the bed) but you yourself cannot lay down, nor can you tell another person to lay down. Yes, I'm sorry, but Eric Clapton is grammatically incorrect when he commands Sally to lay down.

To the contrary, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. To lie is such a verb. To die and to sleep are other examples of intransitive verbs. You can't sleep someone, or die someone or something. You and you alone can only sleep or die yourself. You also can't lie something. You can only lie down yourself.

Repeat after me: To lay is transitive. To lie is intransitive.

Now that you know which verb to use, let's look at their forms. This gets sticky for some people because they've said it wrong for so long, what is correct doesn't sound right to them. Trust me, you'll get used to it.

Broken down, here are the forms:

To lay
present tense -- lay
past tense -- laid
past participle -- laid

To lie
present tense -- lie
past tense -- lay
past participle -- lain (this is the one that seems to freak people out)

Let's put them into action:

Today I lie down. Yesterday I lay down. For the past three weeks, I have lain down for a nap each afternoon.

Today I lay the pencil on the table. Yesterday I laid the pencil on the table. For the past three weeks, I have laid a pencil on the table every afternoon.

Simple, yes? I hope this clears up the mystery of lay vs. lie. Any questions or comments? You know what to do. After that, it's Friday afternoon, so lay your work on the table and lie on the couch and relax :)

2 comments:

  1. using Lay in the Biblical sense takes it out of the argument.
    It's a total different meaning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Actually, the term used biblically is "to lie with someone." "To lay" meaning "to have sex with" was not used until 1934, and is considered slang. From the etymology dictionary:

    1 2
    lay (v.) Look up lay at Dictionary.com
    Old English lecgan "to place on the ground (or other surface)," also "put down (often by striking)," from Proto-Germanic *lagjan (cognates: Old Saxon leggian, Old Norse leggja, Old Frisian ledza, Middle Dutch legghan, Dutch leggen, Old High German lecken, German legen, Gothic lagjan "to lay, put, place"), causative of lie (v.2). As a noun, from 1550s, "act of laying." Meaning "way in which something is laid" (as in lay of the land) first recorded 1819.

    Meaning "have sex with" first recorded 1934, in U.S. slang, probably from sense of "deposit" (which was in Old English, as in lay an egg, lay a bet, etc.), perhaps reinforced by to lie with, a phrase frequently met in the Bible. The noun meaning "woman available for sexual intercourse" is attested from 1930, but there are suggestions of it in stage puns from as far back as 1767. To lay for (someone) "await a chance at revenge" is from late 15c.; lay low "stay inconspicuous" is from 1839. To lay (someone) low preserves the secondary Old English sense.

    ReplyDelete