The phrase \u201cto lay about\u201d is grammatically correct, but it\u2019s not what you think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I understand why nobody gets the modern uses of \u201clie\u201d and \u201clay\u201d right, because you can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OK, present tense of \u201clie\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m going to lie down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(To a dog): Go lie down!*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now the present tense of \u201clay\u201d which takes a direct object. To wit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m tired of carrying this sleeping bag full of pillows, so I\u2019m going to lay it <\/strong>down. (\u201cIt,\u201d which refers to the sleeping bag, is the direct object; it receives the action of the verb.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Past tense is even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Past tense of \u201clie\u201d is \u201clay\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I lay in bed all day yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Past tense of \u201clay\u201d is \u201claid\u201d (you see why you can\u2019t teach this to kids):<\/p>\n\n\n\n After carrying the heavy sleeping bag for an hour, I laid it down on a rock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here is a useful chart:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aha, you say. So for one to say \u201clay about\u201d in the present tense is wrong! My entire premise for this little birdwalk has fallen apart!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not so fast, my friend. \u201cTo lay about\u201d in the archaic sense means \u201cto hit people and things in your near vicinity.\u201d Say what? Yep, it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This entire tempest in a grammatical teapot may be avoided if we collectively decide to change the past tense of \u201clie\u201d to \u201clied.\u201d Problem with that idea is that we would probably just confuse it with that OTHER meaning of the word \u201clie,\u201d which as you know means to tell a whopper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t win with this stuff. I kid you not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *****************************************<\/p>\n\n\n\n *Saying \u201cLay down\u201d to a dog is not only grammatically incorrect; it is also going to confuse the dog. \u201cHmpf,\u201d your dog will say. \u201cI\u2019m not carrying anything. How can I lay it down?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The phrase \u201cto lay about\u201d is grammatically correct, but it\u2019s not what you think. I understand why nobody gets the modern uses of \u201clie\u201d and \u201clay\u201d right, because you can\u2019t 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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[624,625,623],"class_list":["post-1655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings-about-language-and-life","tag-grammar","tag-grammar-police","tag-lie-and-lay"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1656,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions\/1656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/td> Present<\/td> Past<\/td><\/tr> To lie<\/td> Lie<\/td> Lay<\/td><\/tr> To lay<\/td> Lay<\/td> Laid<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n