Word usage help, please!

[medjay]

Okay everyone, I'm currently stumped by the whole lay, lie, laid, lain, lied thing and my Oxford English Usage book isn't really helping me the way I'd like.

Here's the sentence as I currently have it: ". . . he had yet to inform his family that his dreams and desires in fact lied elsewhere."

It doesn't sound quite right, but then none of the forms sound quite right. Can anyone help out here? Thanks!

 

[DurtGurl]

It doesn't sound quite right

Dear MJ,
No shit! Try "lay."
DG

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

Dear MJ,
No shit! Try "lay."
DG

Which as you say Medjay still doesn't sound right, but in fact it is.

Gauche

 

[Gabriel_Lee]

I would use 'led' instead, but 'lay' is right.

 

[medjay]

Re: Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

Which as you say Medjay still doesn't sound right, but in fact it is.

Gauche

The more I say it out loud the more it works. Thanks.

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

Which as you say Medjay still doesn't sound right, but in fact it is.

Hay! Score one for DG. Even an old blind sow finds an acorn once in a while.
MG

 

[Svenskaflicka]

That verb has plagued me since junior high. I always mix those verb forms up! Lay, lie, laid, lied...

Good to know I'm not the only one.

 

[KillerMuffin]

". . . he had yet to inform his family that his dreams and desires in fact lied elsewhere."

You would use "lay" because, presumably, his dreams and desires do in fact lay elsewhere at this very moment.


He had yet to inform his family that his dreams and desires, in fact, laid elsewhere yesterday; though, they do not lay elsewhere at the moment. If he thought about it a bit, he might find that his dreams and desires will lay elsewhere tomorrow.


You lay things down, or things lay elsewhere. You, yourself lie down. So, because his dreams and desires are doing the getting down on top of elsewhere, you use lay and its conjugations.

If he was going to be getting down on top of something, that would be different.

He had yet to inform his family that he had lain elsewhere yesterday, planned to lie down on the couch that very moment, and perhaps will be lying down with someone tomorrow.

Does this help?

 

[snooper]

Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

You would use "lay" because, presumably, his dreams and desires do in fact lay elsewhere at this very moment.


He had yet to inform his family that his dreams and desires, in fact, laid elsewhere yesterday; though, they do not lay elsewhere at the moment. If he thought about it a bit, he might find that his dreams and desires will lay elsewhere tomorrow.


You lay things down, or things lay elsewhere. You, yourself lie down. So, because his dreams and desires are doing the getting down on top of elsewhere, you use lay and its conjugations.

If he was going to be getting down on top of something, that would be different.

He had yet to inform his family that he had lain elsewhere yesterday, planned to lie down on the couch that very moment, and perhaps will be lying down with someone tomorrow.

Does this help?

There is another nasty Queen's English vs. American trap for the unwary here.

In English "lay" is the past tense of the intransitive form of "to lie" meaning be prone.
In English "lied" is the past tense of "to lie" meaning totell a falsehood.
In English "laid" is the past tense of "to lay" meaning to place somewhere.

In American, judging from the stories on Lit, all of these are fully interchangeable both as to meaning and as to tense.

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

There is another nasty Queen's English vs. American trap for the unwary here...

Snoop: a Brit friend was an exchange student in Texas once. He wanted to be a helpful guest (per mum's instructions) so his first night he eagerly said, "Please, let me lay the table." Mrs. Dallas didn't blink and said, "Whatever turns you on, sugar."

Truthfully, Perdita

 

[Vincent E]

Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

You would use "lay" because, presumably, his dreams and desires do in fact lay elsewhere at this very moment.


He had yet to inform his family that his dreams and desires, in fact, laid elsewhere yesterday; though, they do not lay elsewhere at the moment. If he thought about it a bit, he might find that his dreams and desires will lay elsewhere tomorrow.


You lay things down, or things lay elsewhere. You, yourself lie down. So, because his dreams and desires are doing the getting down on top of elsewhere, you use lay and its conjugations.

If he was going to be getting down on top of something, that would be different.

He had yet to inform his family that he had lain elsewhere yesterday, planned to lie down on the couch that very moment, and perhaps will be lying down with someone tomorrow.

Does this help?

I guess KillerMuffin is the resident expert on getting laid.

Someone had to say it, I'm sorry that it had to be me.

 

[Wantonica]

Here's the sentence as I currently have it: ". . . he had yet to inform his family that his dreams and desires in fact lied elsewhere."

I would leave out 'in fact'. That is, if I didn't put too many useless words in all my sentences.

Smiles,
Wantonica

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

Originally posted by Vincent E I guess KillerMuffin is the resident expert on getting laid.

Dear VE,
You may want to keep your head down for a while. Just a gentle hint.
MG

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

Dear VE,
You may want to keep your head down for a while. Just a gentle hint.
MG

Either Muffin is getting all the laying she needs or she has suddenly mellowed early.

I've poked fun at her twice in recent threads and she hasn't 'spock a blow' as we say up here int' North. Maybe she's taken a very local (Castleford) saying to heart "Ah can't spake."

Gauche

 

[MathGirl]

A mellow Muffin

Either Muffin is getting all the laying she needs or she has suddenly mellowed early.

Dear Gauchie,
I would not bet my life or any significant amount of material posessions on that.
MG
Ps. I mean the mellowing part, of course.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Re: Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

There is another nasty Queen's English vs. American trap for the unwary here.

In English "lay" is the past tense of the intransitive form of "to lie" meaning be prone.

I don't get this one. I knew the other two, but this one confuses me.

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

I don't get this one. I knew the other two, but this one confuses me.

That's the one that you should know Svenska. It's what getting laid is all about.

Gauche

 

[Svenskaflicka]

But what does "prone" mean?

 

[KillerMuffin]

Re: Re: Re: Word usage help, please!

There is another nasty Queen's English vs. American trap for the unwary here.

In English "lay" is the past tense of the intransitive form of "to lie" meaning be prone.
In English "lied" is the past tense of "to lie" meaning totell a falsehood.
In English "laid" is the past tense of "to lay" meaning to place somewhere.

In American, judging from the stories on Lit, all of these are fully interchangeable both as to meaning and as to tense.

Another nasty assumptive trap for the unwary.

It's exactly the same in America.

I did not use the past tense of "to lie" meaning to be prone in any of my examples. I used the past perfect tense. In that tense, even when the Queen says it, the past perfect tense of "to lie" meaning to be prone, is "lain". It would be silly to say that he had lay down three days ago.

If you follow my logic for a moment, you will see that "to lay" as defined in either the Queen's dictionary or the American dictionary is "to cause something to lie down" as opposed to simply just "lie down". A hair-splitting point of grammar, but since you are falling into the trap of assumption, it's an important one.

In my examples, I used "lay" in its present tense form and I never used "to lie" in its simple past tense form. Confusing, sometimes, true.

 

[Guest]

Flicka: prone - lying flat; face downward; supine.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

OK, so:

• You lay down on a bed.
• You lay a cloth on a table.
• You lay someone.
• You lie to save your skin.

Am I close?

 

[hiddenself]

This is incorrect

You would use "lay" because, presumably, his dreams and desires do in fact lay elsewhere at this very moment.

He had yet to inform his family that his dreams and desires, in fact, laid elsewhere yesterday; though, they do not lay elsewhere at the moment. If he thought about it a bit, he might find that his dreams and desires will lay elsewhere tomorrow.

You lay things down, or things lay elsewhere. You, yourself lie down. So, because his dreams and desires are doing the getting down on top of elsewhere, you use lay and its conjugations.

If he was going to be getting down on top of something, that would be different.

He had yet to inform his family that he had lain elsewhere yesterday, planned to lie down on the couch that very moment, and perhaps will be lying down with someone tomorrow.

Does this help?

You appear to suggest the use of the verb "to lay." I disagree with this one and so does Webster's. There is no difference between the dreams lying elsewhere and him lying on the couch -- both times the intransitive verb "to lie" (in whatever tens) is needed.

The dreams lie (are lying) elsewhere today.
The dreams lay elsewhere yesterday.
The dreams had lain elsewhere.
The dreams will lie elsewhere tomorrow.

"To lay" is transitive (to lay something).
This would not fit here: The dreams lay (what?) elsewhere today.
Contrast to:
I lay (am laying) the book on the bed...
I laid the book on the bed.
I had laid the book on the bed.

 

[Madame Manga]

OK, so:

• You lay down on a bed.
• You lay a cloth on a table.
• You lay someone.
• You lie to save your skin.

Am I close?

Close, but don't smoke the cigar yet.

You lie [down] on a bed.

MM

 

[hiddenself]

More on lay vs. lie

Examples of need to use "to lie":
<lie in wait>
<the town lies at the mercy of the invaders>
<books lying on the table>
<the route lies to the west>
<hills lie behind us>
<the real reason lies deeper>
<remorse lies heavily on him>
<the choice lies between fighting or surrendering>
<the success of the book lies in its direct style>
<responsibility lies with the adults>

(the subject does not have to be a person, it can be an inanimate think)

The distinction is between someone doing the action to own self (intransitive) or to something/someone else (transitive).

"TO LAY has been used intransitively in the sense of "lie" since the 14th century. The practice was unremarked until around 1770; attempts to correct it have been a fixture of schoolbooks ever since. Generations of teachers and critics have succeeded in taming most literary and learned writing, but intransitive lay persists in familiar speech and is a bit more common in general prose than one might suspect. Much of the problem lies in the confusing similarity of the principal parts of the two words. Another influence may be a folk belief that lie is for people and lay is for things. Some commentators are ready to abandon the distinction, suggesting that lay is on the rise socially. But if it does rise to respectability, it is sure to do so slowly: many people have invested effort in learning to keep lie and lay distinct. Remember that even though many people do use lay for lie, others will judge you unfavorably if you do."

(source: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=lay)

 

[sailorm72003]

Flicka: prone - lying flat; face downward; supine.

Not quite, if we want to get strict; Prone is face down, supine is face up. Here's from merriam webster online:

Prone:...
2 a : having the front or ventral surface downward

Supine:...
1 a : lying on the back or with the face upward b : marked by supination

So, while you may lay prone or supine, it would also be correct to merely lay.

Sailor