Laying and Lying

Modiglani's Reclining Nude

This week’s post is a provocative examination of use and misuse of “lie” and “lay.” First, some context, and then Ms. Picky will discuss a relevant idiom that, though grammatically incorrect, may, by virtue of its long use, have been “grandfathered” into our language.

Why is there such confusion about the use of “lie” and “lay”? For the unfortunate reason that, in spite of the two words’ being completely unrelated in meaning, the present tense of “lay” is spelled and pronounced the same way as the past tense of “lie.”. . .

Lie (To Recline)

Principal Parts: Lie, Lay, Lain

“Lie” is an intransitive verb,* meaning “to recline.” One lies upon a bed. 

Present: lie

Example: 
I lie down for half an hour after I come home from work.

Past: lay

Example: 
I had a headache, but I lay down for a while, and it went away.

Present Perfect: have lain

Example: 

I have lain down whenever I’ve gotten a headache.


Past Perfect: had lain
Example:
I had just lain down for a nap when the doorbell rang. 

Lay (To Put, or Place)

Principal Parts: Lay, Laid, Laid

“Lay” is a transitive verb,** meaning “to put, or place.” One lays a package on a table.

Present: lay

Example: 

I lay the silverware out for dinner each evening.

Past: laid

Example: 

I laid the newspaper on the table.

Present Perfect: have laid
Example: 
I have always laid my keys on the hall table.

Past Perfect: had laid
Example: 
I had laid my keys on the hall table, but someone must have picked them up. 

So now that we have the“lay of the land,” let’s discuss that very idiom: the“lay of the land.” Nowadays, when one refers to getting the“lay of the land,” one is usually using the expression metaphorically, meaning to assess, or size up, a particular situation—but let’s go back to the original, literal expression, to see how the idiom was derived. 


In its original meaning, getting“the lay of the land” meant observing the arrangement of geological features on an area of land: the hills and valleys, the rivers, streams, and rock formations. One might be interested in the “lay of the land” if one were planning military maneuvers or plotting a race course, or, if one were a geologist, trying to determine the presence of certain minerals.

But the idiom “lay of the land” actually derives from the expression to see how “the land lies,” in which “lie” is used in the same way as it would be used in saying how a carpet “lies” upon the floor. 


“Aha!” you say, “but when you refer to how the land lies, that is lie, not lay!”


Exactly.


And, even today, the British version of the American idiom “the lay of the land” is, in fact, “the lie of the land.”


So . . . the Americans have been incorrect all these years? 


Yes, indeed. That said, we have been incorrect for so many years that our usage has become idiomatic—in America—and few (American) people realize how the expression was derived in the first place.


So where does Ms. Picky stand on this usage? 


Ms. Picky uses the American idiom, because she is, after all, American—and the American version at least has the provenance of history—but she never uses it without being aware that is is technically incorrect.

___

*Intransitive means that it does not take an object. One lies; one does not lie something.

**Transitive means that it takes an object. One cannot simply lay (anymore than one can simply put); one must lay something.

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Journalism Wall of Shame

The Journalism Wall of Shame displays errors in grammar, punctuation, or language that have appeared recently in the press. Submissions are welcome. Please include the publication's name and date, the story title, and the reporter's name. The publication of these errors in no way places blame for them on a particular person. Sometimes it is the reporter, sometimes the editor, sometimes the headline writer, but—somewhere in the system—somebody should have known better.

“A block away from New Jersey’s Navesink in Redbank lays [sic] blue water [sic] Seafood, a newly opened restaurant that prides itself on serving fresh, cooked-to-order seafood.”

—“A Seafood Veteran Offers New Eatery,” Christina Kline, wsj.com, Sept. 2, 2011

Ms. Kline has achieved the dubious distinction of having achieved two errors in one sentence: the first, the “lays-for-lies” error; the second, the error in capitalization in the name of the restaurant. Ms. Picky would have given her a pass on that one, assuming it had to be a typo—except that “blue water Seafood” is repeated, lower-cased, later in the article. (And, yes, Ms. Picky went so far as to Google the name of the restaurant to make sure it wasn’t named by a relative of e. e. cummings.)

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