The phrase “to lay about” is grammatically correct, but it’s not what you think.

I understand why nobody gets the modern uses of “lie” and “lay” right, because you can’t teach them to middle schoolers without a national incident. Even high schoolers will snicker and snort and fail utterly to pay attention to the lesson.

Present tense first, teaching mostly by example, because everybody hates it when I start droning on about transitive verbs and indirect objects and the like. But I digress.

OK, present tense of “lie”:

I’m going to lie down.

(To a dog): Go lie down!*

Now the present tense of “lay” which takes a direct object. To wit:

                I’m tired of carrying this sleeping bag full of pillows, so I’m going to lay it down. (“It,” which refers to the sleeping bag, is the direct object; it receives the action of the verb.)

Past tense is even worse.

Past tense of “lie” is “lay”:

               I lay in bed all day yesterday.

Past tense of “lay” is “laid” (you see why you can’t teach this to kids):

             After carrying the heavy sleeping bag for an hour, I laid it down on a rock.  

Here is a useful chart:

	Present	Past
To lie	Lie	Lay
To lay	Lay	Laid

Aha, you say. So for one to say “lay about” in the present tense is wrong! My entire premise for this little birdwalk has fallen apart!

Not so fast, my friend. “To lay about” in the archaic sense means “to hit people and things in your near vicinity.” Say what? Yep, it’s true.

Example: I became tired of the people near me using bad grammar, so I grabbed a yard stick and began to lay about with it.

This entire tempest in a grammatical teapot may be avoided if we collectively decide to change the past tense of “lie” to “lied.” Problem with that idea is that we would probably just confuse it with that OTHER meaning of the word “lie,” which as you know means to tell a whopper.

You can’t win with this stuff. I kid you not.

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*Saying “Lay down” to a dog is not only grammatically incorrect; it is also going to confuse the dog. “Hmpf,” your dog will say. “I’m not carrying anything. How can I lay it down?”