![]() ![]() Abandoned cars were laying along the road. In edited written English such uses of lay are rare and are usually considered nonstandard: Lay down, children. In all but the most careful, formal speech, forms of lay are commonly heard in senses normally associated with lie. The folders have lain on the desk since yesterday. The dog lay in the shade and watched the kittens play. Abandoned cars were lying along the road. ![]() Its forms are irregular its past tense form is identical with the present tense or infinitive form of lay : Lie down, children. ![]() Lay also has many intransitive senses, among them “to lay eggs” ( The hens have stopped laying ), and it forms many phrasal verbs, such as lay off “to dismiss (from employment)” or “to stop annoying or teasing” and lay over “to make a stop.” Lie, with the overall senses “to be in a horizontal position, recline” and “to rest, remain, be situated, etc.,” is intransitive and takes no object. If “place” or “put” can be substituted in a sentence, a form of lay is called for: Lay the folders on the desk. Lay is most commonly a transitive verb and takes an object. Image courtesy of Flickr user woodleywonderworks. To read more from Grace, check out her blog on ProfNet Connect. Grammar Hammer is published weekly on ProfNet Connect, a free social networking site for communicators. Written by Grace Lavigne, senior editor of ProfNet, a service that helps journalists connect with expert sources. Got it? Then you can answer this question: does Chicken Little lay down to lie eggs, or lie down to lay eggs? In both cases, Chicken Little is acting upon something else (the egg). The past tense of “lay” is “laid.” So you could say: In both cases, Chicken Little is acting upon herself. Chicken Little lay down in Foxy Loxy’s lair yesterday.Chicken Little lies down in Foxy Loxy’s lair.It’s a confusing rule because the past tense of “lie” is “lay.” To illustrate: Technically, “lie” means to recline or be situated, and “lay” means to put, place or prepare.īut both actions result in a reclined position. But if the sky is really falling, there’s no time to lie down.Lying there, Chicken Little dreams of a place with sound ceilings.“Lie” is used when the subject is doing something to his or herself, so Chicken Little should lie down and catch her breath. To calm down, she lays her head on a pillow.Whenever Chicken Little gets upset, she lays an egg.“Lay” is used when the subject acts on something else, so Chicken Little should lay down her head. ![]() But when she gets there, in her consternation, she can’t remember whether she was told to lay down or lie down, illustrating the common dilemma English speakers have when choosing between these two verbs. While she’s running around like her head is cut off, the villain of this tale, Foxy Loxy, tells Chicken Little to go his lair and put her feet up. There are many versions of the folk tale, but most begin with an acorn falling on Chicken Little’s head and her resulting belief that the sky is falling. If you have a grammar question you’d like me to address, please drop me a line at and I’ll do my best to answer it.Ĭhicken Little is the central character in a timeless children’s story that almost everyone knows. Via this column, we’ll explore one grammar rule each week. ![]()
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