Grammar Tip: Lie vs. Lay
by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
OK folks, here's your grammar tip of the week. There are a number of verbs that we makers use with some frequency, so I thought it might be time to clear the air. Here's one pair of verbs we often trip over at the MAKE office.
The reason most people get "lay" and "lie" confused is that lay is the past tense of lie as well as being the present tense of itself.
Lay is a transitive verb, meaning that generally it is used with an object (you lay your cigar box guitar on your workbench).
Lie is an intransitive verb, meaning that it is not used with an object (you lie down in exhaustion after finishing your new videocam rocket).
The past tense of lay is "laid" (you laid your socket wrench on the table saw yesterday) and the past tense of lie is "lay" (last week you lay in your hammock and didn't build anything).
OK, now you know the difference. Just don't leave your tools lying around!
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Wow!! Arwen
And just when I thought there were young/old 'Digital folks at O’Reilly. I am heartened to know there are watchful eyes on the usage of language. For myself, the son of a Master Linguist who demanded the same of her offspring, I have been known to send back article, documents and what have you corrected. There needs to be great diligence in this age of spell-check. I find Micro-Bill Word’s grammar checker to be atrocious. I am writing this on OpenOffice.org software and they have wisely left their grammar checker in Beta Limbo
Regards MartinPosted by RedSevenOne on August 19, 2006 at 11:13:30 Pacific Time
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