There has been a lot of confusion over the words lie and lay. But the confusion makes sense because these words have irregular forms and in one case, the past tense of one is the present tense of the other.
Leave it to English to throw in a random challenge just when you least expect it.
So let’s review verb tenses first!
For lie, the various forms look like this:
PRESENT: Lie down and relax.
PAST: He lay down to relax.
PAST PARTICIPLE: He has lain down and relaxed here before.
Oops! See that past tense? Lay is the past tense of lie.
Here are the forms of lay:
PRESENT: Lay the book down on the counter.
PAST: He laid the book down on the counter.
PAST PARTICIPLE: He had laid the book on the counter.
In this case, both the past and past participle version of lay is laid.
So do you use lie or lay?
Once you know the verb tenses, this is the easy part. Because the answer involves placing something. If you are going to recline, you need lie. If you are placing something somewhere, then you need lay.
Pronounce the initials L.A. out loud. L.A., whether you prefer it to mean Los Angeles or Louisiana, is a place. It rhymes with lay. So use that to stimulate your memory: if you are placing something, you need lay.
The real challenge for me with this pair is lain because it’s so rarely used. But I have an unusual way of remembering that it’s the right word choice: an emotionally-charged scene from the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, in which Sidney Poitier’s character tells his bigoted father that the older generation’s prejudice is too much of a burden for the younger generation to bear:
“And not until all of you have lain down and died will the dead weight of you be off our backs. Do you understand, you’ve got to get off my back?”
Yes. I admit it: I’m a grammar nerd and a movie nerd. But hey, this one powerful quote helps me remember a seldom-used tense.
So much about grammar is finding some way to remember rules that you don’t encounter every day. Whatever works for you may not work for anyone else, but as long as it works for you and helps you make the correct word choices, no one else has the right to tell you that your way is wrong.
I hope that over the course of this blog’s very first Grammar Week, I’ve helped you find a few such memory tricks!
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This is one I have never been able to keep straight before. Hopefully, I'll remember the rule of thumb you suggest here.
I hope it works, Paul. Thanks for dropping by.
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It used to annoy me when my wife would say "Lay down!" to the dogs; I would correct her that it's "Lie down!", as if the dog was going to know the difference. Really no wonder my marriage is in the past tense...
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I was taught a memory aid years ago to keep things straight and proper:
StationAry has an A that means plAce; a piece of stationEry has an E as in a lettEr.
Don't even get into write, rite, wright and right.
@boydsivu1 That's interesting...never heard that one before. But as long as it helps, that's great!
@patricksplace Have you done "fewer" vs "less"? If not, you should. I think people are getting ever worse about knowing the difference.
@brandonwx Great idea! I haven't done that one this week, but I'll definitely make a post about it soon! Thanks!
@patricksplace Excellent. Every time I hear someone say "less" when it ought to be "fewer" my ears bleed.
Patrick is a television producer, writer, Mac lover, and Christian, though not necessarily in that order. He has a natural dislike of double standards and poor grammar.
