What if Bob Dylan had sung “Lie Lady Lie”? Or Eric Clapton had sung “Lie Down Sally”? Or the Backstreet Boys had sung “Lie Down Beside Me”? Well, they
would have been grammatically correct. And maybe if we had first heard the songs that way, they wouldn’t sound so weird. Did the songwriters know they were making a grammatical error? Did they care? Did they think about it and use what sounded better?
Who knows? But after reading this blog post, you will know which to use, and not only in the present tense, but in the past and present perfect tenses as well. Not that anyone uses lie in the present perfect . . .
The main distinction between lie and lay is that lie is intransitive in grammar speak, and lay is transitive. So lie does not take a direct object (a receiver of the action), but lay does. In other words, you must lay something. Here are some examples of correct uses of lay and lie. Note that animals and things can also lie, not just people:
- I think I will lie down.
- She is lying in the sun.
- The dog always lies on that blanket.
- I like to collect the shells that lie on the beach.
- Lay your head on my shoulder. (Lay what? Lay your head.)
- You can lay your purse on the table. (Lay what? Lay your purse.)
- Every time he comes over he lays himself on the hammock. (Lays what? – who? in this case – Lays himself.)
- Lay those books on my desk. (Lay what? Lay those books.)
So you get the idea. You don’t lay down. You lie down.
It gets a little trickier in the past tense:
- The past tense of lie is lay.
- The past tense of lay is laid, which makes more sense.
Here are some examples of correct past tense:
- Yesterday, I lay on the sofa all day. (not laid)
- She visited last week, and lay out in the sun most of the time. (not laid)
- He laid the cookies on the table.
- I laid the pumpkin on the floor, so we could carve it.
The present perfect tense is the one with the helping verb has or have.
- The present perfect (also called past participle) of lie is lain — the one no one knows what to do with!
- The present perfect (also called past participle) of lay is laid, just like the past tense: easy.
Here are some examples of correct perfect tenses:
- I have lain out in the sun all day and have a sunburn.
- Those rocks have lain in that pile for months.
- Soon she will have lain in that bath so long, she will look like a prune.
- I have laid all my cards on the table.
- We have laid tile before, so we can help you.
So . . .
It is lie, lay, have lain
It is lay, laid, have laid
Be sure to catch my “ditty of the day” on social media if you follow me – every day I post on Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Facebook (personal and business). I change it up every month. This month I have been posting a comma rule every day. Next month I will be posting words that begin with — oh, I don’t want to give it away!
As a songwriter who recently had a poem published which included an incorrect use of “lay” (correct would have been “lie”) I want to plead the case for the flexibility of language. Go back to our constitution or Shakespeare or many other beloved texts and we’ll see many spelling variants and grammar variants. Were the writers fools? Language always was dynamic until dictionaries and grammar books, and they were constantly absorbing new influences. If the language has a tangible deficiency, where “correct” is less clear than incorrect, those are places it should have the right to stretch and change. I would put the fact that saying “we will lie” definitely sounds like we’ll be telling fibs in this category; in common usage and in many great songs there is no doubt of the meaning when the word “lay” is used. Likewise we really need new ways of saying “I’m sorry” when what we mean is “you have my sympathy” rather than “I apologize.” I’m sorry if anyone is upset by language shifting like sand.
Thank you for the comment!
I have to agree with Mike Van Horn’s comment “When rules for language get too complicated, users change them.”
Could it be that the “complicated rules” are leftover from past years or century?
My previous editor used to say that language is dynamic, always changing. I guess that applies to grammar as well.
But I miss people using “if I were” instead the colloquial “if I was” and abandoning the past perfect tense, just to name two.
If you think about it, “correct.\,” formal language hasn’t changed that much. And what do we mean by complicated. Too complicated for whom? People too lazy to learn how to do it correctly? Is it easier to do it wrong than right? Why? How much must we dumb ourselves down? Other countries are not like this.
Recently, I listened to an interview of songwriters who were asked where their ideas for lyrics originated. They responded that most of their ideas come from ordinary people’s conversations plus their own. The emphasis is placed on rhythm and rhyme as well as lyrics, rather not grammar.
Sad, isn’t it.
But it’s also job security for us!
Good point! But sad anyway!
When the rules for language get too complicated, users change them. At least in English. Makes me wonder, how did these complex rules ever get established in the first place?
Which that, further farther, alright all right, like as—I see these used incorrectly as often as correctly.
I doubt if anybody gets confused by “lie down” vs. “lay down,” whereas confusing then and than can lead to a reader’s “huh?” response. I suspect, if the misuse of complex rules is not confusing, it’s headed for a change.
Like prepositions at the end of sentences.
You are probably right! But as a grammar person, I don’t want to understand why people just can’t learn the language. Isn’t it as easy to do it right as to do it wrong???
My dad told me, “The only time you use laid is, ‘He got laid’ “ It still makes me smile to recall that
I am glad your dad taught you about grammar! 🙂