I received a question in response to last week’s post asking when I was “going to have the courage to tackle” the lay/lie situation. Well, I have talked about it before, but bring it on . . . and here we go . . .
To lie and to lay are present tense verb forms. Let’s forget about the definition of lie that means not telling the truth. We are talking about the reclining kind here.
Grammatically speaking, lie is an intransitive verb, meaning it takes no direct object after it. A direct object is a noun (person, place, thing, or idea) or pronoun (takes the place of a noun, e.g., him, her, me, it, them) that receives the action of the verb. Lay, on the other hand is transitive and does take a direct object.
What does this mean in “regular” terms? You must lay something or someone down. Now, most people don’t use lie and lay at all for present tense because it sounds odd; instead they use a variation of the present tense (progressive present tense, using the present participle form). Here are some examples of using lay and lie and of using the more common progressive tense (-ing).
- I lie on my hammock. (present tense; lie is correct because there is no noun or pronoun directly after lie)
- I lay my book on the hammock. (present tense; lay is correct because you are laying something: book)
- I am lying on my hammock while I talk on the phone. (More common present tense using -ing)
- I am laying my book on the hammock while I get my lunch in the house. (More common present tense)
Things can also lie, not just people:
- A pile of rocks is lying on the side of the road.
- They are laying a pile of rocks on the side of the road. (Laying a pile: has a direct object)
- The dog is lying in the sun.
- The dog is laying his bone in the doghouse. (Laying his bone: has a direct object)
Now, that is easy enough. So let’s go to the past tense. What did I do maybe yesterday? The past tense of lie is lay. Yup. Confusing. The past tense of lay is laid. Not so confusing.
- Yesterday, I lay in my hammock all day. (Past tense of lie)
- Yesterday, I laid tile in my bathroom (Past tense of lay because there is a direct object: tile)
Now, let’s go to the past participle. That is the form we use with have, had or will have in front of it. Actually, many people don’t use these tenses at all, especially in speech, where things are often more casual. However, here we go. The past participle of lie is lain, even thought many people have never heard of it. I am not sure I have ever used it. And the past participle of lay is laid, which is a lot easier to remember.
- I have lain on this hammock for three hours.
- She has lain in the sun too long!
- She will have lain in the sun for three hours by the time we need to leave for dinner.
- I have never laid tile before.
Okay. I am going to give you a trick you can use. Subsitute the word “place” for your lay or lie. If place works, you use lay or its variations: is laying, was laying, have been laying, had been laying, laid, have laid, had laid, etc. If place doesn’t work, it is the lie verb you need.
I lie down.
I am lying down. (present participle: lying)
Yesterday I lay down.
Every day this week I have lain down.
I had just lain down when the doorbell rang.
Got it? But wait, there is more. And this “more” is never written about for some reason. It is a rule I never thought about before because is doesn’t usually come up — but it does with lie.
What about the past tenses that use -ing (past progressive)? Was I laying down yesterday or was I lying down yesterday? It is simple past tense (although progressive using the -ing) so should it be was laying? But obviously that isn’t right because was laying belongs to lay. Argh!!!!! Well, if you think about it, we always use the present participle for those tenses: I was running, not I was ranning; I was swimming, not I was swamming. And I was lying down, not I was laying down.
Back to the trick I gave you above: I was placing down yesterday. The trick doesn’t work. So with the verb lie, in the tenses that use -ing, it is always still lie.
- I am lying down.
- I was lying down.
- I have been lying down.
- I had been lying down.
- I will have been lying down.
Versus
- I am laying my books down.
- I was laying my books down.
- I have been laying my books down.
- I had been laying my books down.
- I will have been laying my books down.
So that is apparently why most people never use or need the past tense of lie (lay) or the past participle of lie (lain): we usually speak in the past using an -ing tense.
Whew! That wasn’t easy. Kudos to my favorite reference book, The Gregg Reference Manual, for the trick about substituting the word “place.”
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- Please keep your comments about your grammar pet peeves coming; I am compiling them for another blog post. You can e-mail them to me at info@bigwords101.com or you can still leave a comment on last week’s post, or you can comment about your pet peeves in this post.
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Thoroughly enjoyed the lesson and all the comments too!
Could you please do one on ‘me’ and ‘I’ ?
Thank you! Yes, I will absolutely do a post on I and me. I did one a while ago, but it bears repeating! Thanks for the comment.
Misusing “that” and “which” drives me nuts. Native English speakers commonly use these words incorrectly in conversation all the time. It’s reading “which” when it should be “that” in a book/story/article that sends me over the edge! …
OH!…and I hate “these ones”!!! 😉
I also can’t stand reading “which” when it should be “that”! Yes, “these ones” is a common peeve! Sounds very childish!
Maybe you’ve already written a post on using the words good and well. If not, that would be so helpful.
I love how simple you explained this common mistake.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!
Thanks for the comment! I will do a post soon on good and well. I probably have done one, and I know the issue is in my books.
Hi, Arlene,
You ought to forward this to the TV newsman Anderson Cooper. He used a phrase that was something like, “He ought to lay down,” recently. Linda Jay
Ugh! I believe it…I don’t watch him any longer…must have been the bad grammar…but then the grammar is no better on MSNBC! Thanks for listening and catching these people. I might send them a copy of one of my books when I get around to it!
Thank you for putting this in your blog post this week. I finally got it! It was always the verb that wouldn’t stick with me. Now it does!
Thank you, Arlene! You’re the best.
Aw, gee, thanks! Glad it helped!!
I’m sure I’m not the only dyslexic who finds using this word a NIGHTMARE. It doesn’t matter how many times I run to the dictionary for which form to use, my brain simply won’t hold that information in my head. The problem with dictionaries is they might give one example of usage, if you’re lucky, not almost every conceivable one as you have here, Arlene, you have joined the ranks of my heroes! I’m going to copy the link for this page so I never have to suffer the heebie jeebies in the middle of the night wondering if I got it right.
Yay! It makes me feel so good when I have really helped someone and explained something well! Thank you!
The lie vs lay is interesting but I can forgive those errors. What makes me crazy are the errors of than vs then, or the to too or two errors, or the worst: their there they’re . Maybe you can spend some time with that one.
I know, Grace. You would think we would have those all straightened out by now. I think with than and then, it is a typo or just lack of thought. I say that because I know the difference, yet I have used the wrong one (I admit it). Maybe it’s the same with to and too. I don’t know that the problem is with they’re and their and you’re and your though. Thanks for the comment. I am sure I have written about those, but sometimes I don’t like to harp on something that seems easy like these. But I can and I will!
Now that is interesting – as a dyslexic you’d think I’d have a problem with to too two, and their there they’re, even it and it’s, but I never have. Seems to be a bit like selective amnesia – and of course my punctuation is c**p, takes me longer to edit that than the words I write (and you can probably tell I don’t do it for posts!).
Oh, you mean that run-on sentence?? 🙂 Punctuation is tough; commas are a gray area (or is that is a gray area?)
Sorry, people! I should have divulged my nationality: it is Dutch. And of course we have cognate verbs in Dutch as well (‘liggen’ – ‘leggen’, etcetera). The English grammar I was taught was based on Dutch grammar – I like to call it ‘differential’, for obvious reasons.
Apart from English I took Germand and French as well: all three foreign languages were mandatory in my time.
… a Germand is not a German gourmand….
What is Germand?
Ah! Thank you for letting me know! I took French, which I could never get because we learned conversational instead of grammatical. I also took Latin, where I excelled because it was grammar based, and we didn’t have to speak it!
When there’s confusion over similar-looking or similar-sounding words–like “lie” and “lay”–could that be a sign that our language needs to change?
For example, when I was in junior high school (now “middle school” I think), our teacher drilled us on the distinction between “shall” and “will.” We spent serious time on it. But today, no one I know makes the distinction. In fact, I’ve not heard anyone use “shall” in a long time.
Perhaps someday either “lay” or “lie” will disappear from everyday use. I doubt that there’d be any loss in clarity because context determines the meaning. But what do you think?
I hae mixed thoughts on this, and it is an interesting thought. I also remember learning about “shall” and “will” and you are correct. “Shall is not used anymore except in legal writing, where it does indeed matter and have a certain meaning. As far as lay and lie, you are right: There is no confusion, so why distinguish? Well, I think that can be said of many grammar issues. The snob in me doesn’t like to see things changed just because some people can’t figure out how to do it right. For example, people cannot figure out the difference between who and whom, so whom is apparently becoming obsolete. I think there is already enough dumbing down in our society, especially recently where it apparently better to be stupid and intelligence is looked down upon as elitism.
Your point about shall forgets the invitational use e.g. “Shall we dance?” or offer “Shall I pour the tea?” These are polite forms that may be more commonly used in British English, which I speak, than American English.
The main thing with the form of shall is to remember that it is only followed by the subject pronouns I or we, not he/she/it/they.
Thank you for the reminder. I just worked on “will” and “shall”for my new book today! The colloquialism Shall we dance pretty much means Let’s dance. Will we dance makes no sense at all!
I love the replace “place “example. Explaining this has just become easier.
Thank you .
I agree with you. And I cannot take credit for it. I thought I had found it in the Gregg Reference Manual, but I may have found it online somewhere. But, wherever, it is very helpful.
Brilliant post!!
You made my day! Thank you so much for the comment!
somewhat: typing on a hand-held tablet in the ‘one-finger’ system is no trifling matter…
I learnt about the difference in a learned way: ‘to lay’ is a causative verb. It causes somebody/something to ‘lie’. These verbs derive from the past tenses of the original verbs. Compare ‘to set [the child in its chair]’ (cause to sit), ‘to drench [a horse]’ (cause to drink), ‘to fell [a tree] (cause to fall), and others.
A bit – seemingly anomalous – is ‘to singe’ (cause to sing): intense singeing produces a sound resembling a singing sound.
To simplify the problem somewhar: all these causatives are regular verbs, ending in ‘[e]d’.
Did you learn that in America? I ask because a number of readers are from other countries, and I don’t know of anyone here teaching causative verbs. Must have been a really good school! We call them transitive – words that take an object, or receive the action of the verb. I know that sit and set are a similar duo to lay and lie, and you mention that one. What about raise and rise, another similar duo. Is raise to cause to rise? Thanks for the comment. I learn something new every day!
Eh? If you drench a horse you’ve either thrown a bucket of water over it or you’ve forced a liquid medicine down its throat
I know nothing about horses.LOL
Apparently ‘to drench’ has the SPECIFIC meaning of ‘administer medicine to a [sick] horse’, where I based the original meaning ‘to make to drink’ on Old and Middle English and, forgive me, Modern Dutch, where one still can drench a horse (‘een paard drenken’) by allowing it (or making it, if stubborn) to drink.
And there is a more horrible usage of the word, but that has to do with drowning…
I don’t even have a reply for this, but thank you for the information. We like any information about etymology (hopefully that isn’t the one about bugs!)
I would guess that 90% of the educated population doesn’t use these correctly. I was taught
lie/lay/lain, lay/laid/laid in the 8th grade and have never forgotten it! Lucky me.
I would agree with you! I think many people also work around it and avoid using “lain,” but “laid” is certainly overused incorrectly, as is “lay” and “laying.” I remember learning it in school too, but I am not sure when it really stuck. Most of the grammar I know comes from teaching 7th grade English! Thanks for the comment.