Lie/Lay [Grammar Gestapo]

[woodwardiocom]

-I've been seeing this mistake everywhere lately, including the most recent issue of Planetary. I will be silent no more:

"To lie" is what you do to yourself. "Apes? I think I need to lie down."

"To lay" is what you do to something else. "Lay down your weapon, human!"

Confusing bit: The past tense of "lie" is "lay". "I lay down for a nap this morning, and when I woke up, the planet was ruled by apes!"

Here's a webpage.
Here's a quiz.

(If you think this is directed at you, trust me, it ain't just you. Freakin' everywhere, man.)

Comments

[bluepapercup]

100% on the quiz, man. Lie/Lay was one of my mother's pet peeves. It was drilled into our heads from very early on. It's also one of the mistakes that makes me cringe hardest.

Oh for the love of gods!

[mortalcoil02.livejournal.com]

This kind of thing drives me NUTS!

Thanks for opening an old wound Jon. ;)

i'm so happy to see other people care about this.

Tomorrow we'll discuss good vs well.

Re: Oh for the love of gods!

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

oh my GOD. that one makes me crazy.

brother in arms!

[apostrophe-girl.livejournal.com]

Brother, join the force! Take arms against a tide of linguistic and grammatic abuse!

Word!

[tisana.livejournal.com]

Urk. Much as I'm a grammar nazi in some senses, there are some things that will trip me up.

Lay/lie is one of them, as well as proper use of pronouns that sound too damn formal (picking up the phone and saying, "This is she," fer instance). The speech that I know to be correct often yields to speech that I know people will accept and that will not alienate me from them. Good/well is one that I sometimes deliberately use incorrectly, but it does grate when others get it wrong.

Sillyness!

[cathijosephine.livejournal.com]

I think the distinction is alltogether silly and not rooted in usefulness anywhere. This is probably why I've never been able to remember the difference for more than three days at a time.

Bah!

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

[narrowed eyes]

-Ve have vays of making you grammatically correct . . .

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Freakin' everywhere, man.

It is, and it annoys me, too. I pretty trivially got all the quiz questions right simply by looking at what "sounded right", which reassures me that I have this particular distinction hardwired.

On the other hand, the irregular beast that is English grammar is also to blame here. Usages like this tend to get simplified when the users just don't want them, or don't learn them. In a century or two it's entirely possible this distinction will pass from colloquial English. Languages evolve, sometimes not in ways we'd like.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

I get confused when I think about it because it's supposed to be confusing, but my "sounds right" sense gets all of those right. (I actually clicked a few wrong because I was double-guessing myself.)

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

My pet peeve, and this is one which I inherited from my grandad, is "I could care less."

Think about it: you are trying to suggest you really do not care at ALL for the the situation or thing. But you could care less?

I couldn't care less!!!!

[dbang.livejournal.com]

I often say "I could care less...but it wouldn't be worth the effort so I won't".

[sebastian-tombs.livejournal.com]

I thought the rule was, politicians always lie, unless their President Clinton.

[Never you worry Herr Grammermeister, I scored 100% on the quiz]

[ceo]

I thought the rule was, politicians always lie, unless their President Clinton.

Please tell me you did that on purpose to piss off woodwardiocom. :-)

[sebastian-tombs.livejournal.com]

heheheh.

I was going to do it again, but I couldn't think of anything that wood seem subtle enough.

[crazybone.livejournal.com]

Lain? Lain.
Didn't know about that one.