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• 01 January 2010

  Common Errors in English

  Here I am going to introduce on a regular basis words and expressions that are actually mistakes, some of them being unforgiveable grammar errors which are made by supposedly respectable people, often professionals who should know better.
   
  Let’s start with the first Whopper.
  
  Don’T say:  I was tired so I went upstairs and laid on the bed.
  
  SaY: I was tired so I went upstairs and LAY on the bed.
                  
  The infinitive TO LIE (LIE – LAY- LAIN) generally means to stretch yourself horizontally from head to toe on some flat surface, usually on a bed, but it could also be on the ground or on a table. Right, you say, we know that, get to the point!
  
  All right, I’m sorry for stating something so obvious. But let’s get the concept straight. You cannot lie something or somebody else anywhere. This means that the verb TO LIE can only refer to the subject of the sentence. We call this an intransitive verb (i.e. it does not and can not take an object).
   
  Now, quite another thing is to LAY SOMETHING or SOMEBODY (somewhere)     
  
  In the present tense you can  LAY the table, LAY a map on the table, LAY a baby in a cot, etc. . A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if TO LAY can (generally) be replaced by TO PUT.
  Because you can LAY something (somewhere) means that LAY is a transitive verb, it takes an object (as distinct from LIE).
  So, in the past tense you LAID the table, you LAID map on the table and you LAID the baby in the cot. Ok, so far? Good.
   
  You may be asking yourself if this note should be in Pedants’ Purgatory. No, it should not. This has nothing to do with pedantry. If you say I laid on the bed, it’s downright bad English, shame on you! Go to bed! Lie down! End of story.
  
  Well, on second thoughts, maybe not…
  There is another word which people almost never use because, firstly, the concept is quite hard to imagine, and, secondly, they mistake it for laid. That word is LAIN, which is the Past Participle of  LIE (LIE – LAY –LAIN).
  I am a big believer in having a clear concept before using words which might turn out to be redundant, they have no clear use anymore. I mean sometimes the word exists when the concept is barely existent or, at best, far-fetched.
  The best chance of actually using the word LAIN is with a perfect tense which means the obligatory intervention of the auxiliary verb have. So what concept can we imagine that would require the intervention of the word lain? Mmmm, let’s see…
  
  All right, here we go. You have arrived home with a big headache. You go to your bedroom and lie down; then the phone rings. It’s Majella.
  
  “Hi Majella, look, could you call me back later! I arrived home a few minutes ago with a whale of a headache and have just lain down on the bed to see if I can get rid of the bloody thing, bla bla bla…”  
  
  Well, reader, maybe you can think of a more common concept, call it scenario, if you wish. But the point is that concepts or scenes requiring the use of the word lain are pretty few and far between. And besides, only about 10% would actually say I have lain, the other 90% would say I have laid, it sounds better.They’d be wrong!
  
  Now all this may be highly boring stuff to many but if you’ve read this far you must be  concerned to some extent about the quality of your English. If you take pride in speaking correctly and you make mistakes like this, I’m afraid your educated listener will be less than impressed. And yet good new PC will prevent her or him from putting you right.
  
  And just to complicate things a little bit more, we have the intransitive verb TO LIE (meaning to deliberately say something which you know to be untrue). While it may seem to cloud the issue, this is a regular verb and should present no problem to students (I LIE – I LIED – I HAVE LIED).
  
  Now to round off, try these five questions if you’re still in doubt:
  
  1. I have … my cards on the table
  a. laid
  b. lain
  
  2. I  … down because I was tired
  a. lay
  b. laid
  
  3. I … a bet on the Grand National.
  a. laid
  b. lay
  
  
  4. I … on the table
  a. lay
  b. laid
  
  5.  I … the book on the table
  a. laid
  b. lay
  
  
  Answers: All answers are a. Note that in answers 1, 3 and 5 laid can be substituted by PUT
  
  Well, I think I’ve said enough and besides I think you’d better go and check the baby. Do you remember where you laid him. Right, in the cot, but he’s not there now, the poor little thing’s just fallen out and he’s lying on the floor screaming for his mudda! Some babies do have ‘em. Bye for now, I’m off for a lie down.

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  sent by Mike Teacher at 15:09h 3 comments

  tags: common,errors,English,verbs,to lie,lay,lain