Today’s installment of Mangled Monday: The words lie and lay: how to tell them apart, and when (not) to use them.
Frankly–and I hope you won’t think less of me for admitting this–this pair of words is one that I always have trouble telling apart. So, let’s recap for the benefit of us all, shall we?
“Lay” is a transitive verb, which means that it acts on something else, and means “to put something down.” So, you can lay down a fork, or you can lay down the law, but you cannot simply lay down.
“Lie” is an intransitive verb, so it doesn’t need an object of any kind, and means “to recline or be placed.” So, when you’re tired, you lie down.
So far, so good, right? That’s not really all that confusing. At bedtime, you lay the baby down in his or her crib and then go lie down in your own bed.
It’s afterward that it becomes confusing, because while the past tense of “lay” is “laid,” the past tense of “lie” is “lay.” This means that when you’ve had a sleepless night trying to keep this all straight, what you did was “lay awake” while tossing and turning.
(Should we even get into the past participles of lie/lain and lay/laid? No? Okay.)
Now, I don’t know about you, but my head is spinning. I’m going to lay down my mouse and go lie down for a while….
Do you take requests? How about un-mangling “assure,” “insure,” and “ensure” sometime?
My mother tells the story of a mild-mannered fellow secretary who got so frustrated at the misuse of this that one day my mom heard coming from her friend’s office the shout, “Lie, damn you, LIE!”
Oh, great, a new favorite blog. 🙂
A friend of mine sent me here, knowing what a stickler I am about grammar and spelling (internet spelling makes the Baby Jesus cry!), saying, “your new favorite blog!” She was right.
Thank you for this–I’ve always been somewhat pessimistic and too lazy to start a blog like this myself!
I’ve been noticing this more and more lately and it makes me sad (literally, but some might argue that I’m sad in a figurative sense, too *lol*). There’s a great post over at Alien Barbecue that talks about the lie/lay confusion in more detail.
They may have become more confused today than Old English “licgan”/”lecgan” 1000+ years ago:
Ic licge/læg – I lie/lay
Ic lecge/legde – I lay/laid
I love that you have this — this is a grammar rule that WON’T stay in my head — the past tense of lie/lay. Thanks for giving me somewhere to go for an answer.