I recently started taking a crazy fitness class at my gym. I like the instructor, but I secretly think he may be trying to kill us! I spend most of the class praying for it to be over, keeping one eye on the clock while trying not to fall off the medicine ball, or out of my plank, or messing up some equally torturous position.
When the time to catch our breath and stretch finally comes, I'm always thrilled. However, I often have a hard time relaxing right away because the instructor makes the same error every class: He says "Lay down on your backs," and it makes me cringe. (My yoga instructors often make this same mistake.)
I’m not going point out my instructor’s error to him because he’s not a writer. But I know this one can be confusing even for writers, so I thought it was worth explaining in my blog:
You LAY something else down. You LIE yourself down.
In the present tense, here are some examples:
Correct: I lay the fork next to my plate.
Correct: We lie down on our backs at the end of class and rest.
Correct: To end this war we must lay down our arms.
Correct: If we lie down and stay still, maybe they won’t see us.
In the past tense, things get a little tricky. You LAID something else down. You LAY yourself down.
Correct: I laid the fork next to my plate.
Correct: We lay down on our backs at the end of class and rested.
Correct: To end the war we laid down our arms.
Correct: We lay down and stayed still, hoping they wouldn’t see us.
In the present perfect and past perfect tenses, you HAVE LAID or HAD LAID something else down. You HAVE LAIN or HAD LAIN yourself down.
Correct: I have often laid the fork next to my plate.
Correct: We have lain down and rested on our backs at the end of every class.
Correct: To end the war we had laid down our arms.
Correct: We had lain down and remained still, hoping they wouldn’t see us.
I’m not going to lie; this can be a little confusing! But like all grammar, it’s also important. So lay down your pen and think about it before you put anything in ink.
-Maria
Maria Murnane is the best-selling author of the Waverly Bryson series, Cassidy Lane, Katwalk, and Wait for the Rain. She also provides consulting services to aspiring and published authors. Learn more at www.mariamurnane.com.
This blog post originally appeared on CreateSpace.com. Reprinted with permission. © 2015 CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.
This article was very helpful. One of the ways I remember when to use lay and lie is the following phrase taken from The Elements of Style: a hen lays eggs; a llama lies down.
This is one of the reasons why I have a copy-editor!
I'm reminded what my high school algebra teacher said to me when he overheard I did my homework while laying out in the sun: "Kelly, only bad girls lay in the sun!"
Never forgot the lesson!
Kelly Hayes-Raitt
Great post Maria! As English is my second language this is something I will have to work on constantly!
Thanks, Maria. You made it very clear.
Patricia, I can't help but wanting to share these most opening beautiful lines from one of my favorite poem,s "The Land of Counterpane," from one of my favorite authors, Robert Louis Stevenson:
When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.
thanks, Jane, for the clarification!
Patricia, lay is also past tense of (to) lie. So in this sentence it could refer to the past.
to lie (intransitive): lie, lay, lain I am lying here.
to lay (transitive): lay, laid, laid She was laying a blanket over the dog when he began to bark.
Last night the dog lay down at the foot of the bed and began to meow.
Was just struggling with this. So is it, the dog lay down at the foot of the bed? For some reason doesn't sound right to me.
Great post...yes, indeed, I admit I have difficulties with this in my writing. Thanks for the clarifications. Giving examples was very helpful.
What would Eric Clapton say about his great song, "Lay Down Sally"? Alternately, What would Eric Clapton say about his great song, "Lay Down Sally?"
I also recall the psalm in English, "Now I lay me down to sleep..." Here the "me" is present, but the underlying structure even without the "lay" is the same.
I'm not so sure about this! In any romance language, a verb like this would be reflective only because it is a transitive verb. Think of Spanish, sientate. In this English case, then, we would use the transitive lay, which takes an object, which in this case is understood and does not appear.