The death of "lie" (vs "lay") or Put the lie to lay
It's going on 4 decades now that it's become obvious to me that proper English usage vis-Ã -vis lie vs lay was going the way of the dodo. Wakened from a reverie during a third-year veterinary medicine lecture, I was asked a question (the reference to which I had no clue) by the lecturer: "Which is correct? Lie or lay?" My response was: "It depends on who's doing the laying." That generated class laughter and got me off the hook of my obliviousness.
Since then it has become ever more obvious that proper use of these verbs by native speakers of English — at least in North America above the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) — is more the exception than the rule in everyday life, across all classes and professions, even in the style sheets or at least practice of newsreaders, who used to be counted on to project the norm.
Even more exasperating, this problem is creeping into the printed word in all genres.
Proper usage can be seen in this comparative couplet: Now I lie down to sleep vs Now I lay me down to sleep
As one dictionary (New Oxford American Dictionary) lays it out:
lie [laɪ]
verb (lies, lying [ˈlʌɪɪŋ] ; past lay [leɪ] ; past participle lain [leɪn]) [no object]
The verb lie ('assume a horizontal or resting position') is often confused with the verb lay ('put something down'), giving rise to incorrect uses such as 'he is laying on the bed' (correct use is 'he is lying on the bed') or 'why don't you lie the suitcase on the bed?' (correct use is 'why don't you lay the suitcase on the bed?').
The confusion is only heightened by the fact that lay is not only the base form of to lay, but is also the past tense of to lie, so while 'he is laying on the bed' is incorrect, 'he lay on the bed yesterday' is quite correct.
lay [leɪ]
verb (past and past participle laid [leɪd]); it normally takes an object
The verb lay means, broadly, 'put something down': they are going to lay the carpet.
The past tense and the past participle of lay is laid: 'they laid the groundwork'; 'she had laid careful plans'.
The verb lie, on the other hand, means 'assume a horizontal or resting position': 'why don't you lie on the floor?'
The past tense of lie is lay: 'he lay on the floor earlier in the day'.
The past participle of lie is lain: 'she had lain on the bed for hours'.
In practice, many speakers inadvertently get the lay forms and the lie forms into a tangle of right and wrong usage. Here are some examples of typical incorrect usage: 'have you been laying on the sofa all day?' (should be lying); 'he lay the books on the table' (should be laid); 'I had laid in this position so long, my arm was stiff' (should be lain).
noun [in singular] the general appearance of an area, including the direction of streams, hills, and similar features: the lay of the surrounding countryside.
This may have something to do with the looming loss of correct past participles in the majority of irregular verbs, the proper forms' being replaced with the form for the past tense; for example, 'I have ran' instead of 'I have run', 'I have drank' instead of 'I have drunk', and so on. The impetus for language change of this magnitude is likely to derive from the "regularity" of regular verbs which really have only two forms, present tense and past tense (present tense plus the suffix -ed), the latter of which is seconded for the past participle; for example, I touch ~ I touched ~ I have touched.
And it doesn't help that some irregular verbs have identical forms in the past tense and past participle; for example, I lead ([lid]) ~ I led ([lɛd]) ~ I have led ([lɛd]), I read ([rid]) ~ I read ([rɛd]) ~ I have read ([rɛd]).
Now I think I'll go have good cry and another glass of wine.
