[Magdalen] Fwd: Whither to lie and to lay?

Sibyl Smirl polycarpa3 at ckt.net
Thu Jul 28 02:09:13 UTC 2016


lie, lay, lain

lay, laid, laid

Often misused in modern fiction, in which the art of proofreading seems 
to be neglected.

Then the usages of "to lie" as in "to tell an untruth" seem to confuse 
the matter further in many minds.


On 7/27/16 10:27 AM, Scott Knitter wrote:
> I used to think I knew the difference but recently heard a contrary
> explanation (especially of the past tense, such as "I lay down and
> then fell asleep."
>
> So now I feel I'm on thin ice with my own understanding. Is it this?
>
> Lay implies motion; lie implies a stationary state - Lay down over
> there, and then lie there for a few minutes.
>
> Past: I lay there for an hour and then woke up.
>
> On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 9:42 AM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen
> <magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:
>> It's interesting to reflect that my parents (a farm boy from Minnesota  and
>> a daughter of Norwegian immigrants) never misused who/whom and  never
>> confused to lie and to lay.  The result of that is that I do not  misuse
>> them
>> either.

The mother of a friend of mine never spoke anything but Swedish until 
she entered the First Grade of one of the one-room rural schools in my 
county, and she learned her English well enough to pass the County Rural 
Teachers' Examination when she'd graduated from High School.  She was 
renowned as one of the best, too.


-- 
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net


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