Welcome to Grammar Time! Sit back, relax, and enjoy my first post! Hopefully you'll take away something new. :)
If you’ve ever had trouble with
correct grammar, rise your hand. Hmm… sound wrong? That’s because it is. Some
people consider their pet peeves to be toe tapping or board scratching or using
annoying phrases. I find it grating when someone uses incorrect grammar, like
confusing verbs that require an object (transitive verbs) and verbs that do not (intransitive verbs)— lay
and lie, raise and rise.
First, there’s the issue of lay and lie. The bane of my
grammatically-punctilious existence. When I hear them misused, I grit my teeth
and pretend I’m not shrieking on the inside. Unfortunately, this happens all
too frequently, because those are among the most commonly switched words. Are
you laying down or lying down? Should you lie down over here or lay down over
there? You lay the book down yesterday, or you laid it down?
Well, wonder no
more; I’m here to clear everything up. The verb “to lay” is transitive and therefore requires a direct
object— that is, something to which the action refers. “To lie” requires just a
subject as it is intransitive. You lay the book down, but you, yourself, lie down. Therein lies the distinction. Hah.
The confusion
begins when using the past tense. The past tense of lay is laid. But the past
tense of lie… is lay. Confusing, to say the least. So last week when you didn’t
feel well, you lay down in bed. But when you pulled the covers up, you laid
them over yourself.
And of course, there’s the present participle. But here’s where it gets easy. The present participle of “lay” is “laying,” while the present participle of “lie” is simply “lying.” Here’s how I keep them straight: To paraphrase a very wise grammar website, when you go to the beach for vacation, you spend your time “lying” on the sand, not “laying.” Unless you’re referring to the colloquial form of “laying”… and that just ends with a lot of sand in very unfortunate places [1].
And of course, there’s the present participle. But here’s where it gets easy. The present participle of “lay” is “laying,” while the present participle of “lie” is simply “lying.” Here’s how I keep them straight: To paraphrase a very wise grammar website, when you go to the beach for vacation, you spend your time “lying” on the sand, not “laying.” Unless you’re referring to the colloquial form of “laying”… and that just ends with a lot of sand in very unfortunate places [1].
On
a similar and much quicker note, raise and rise are sometimes switched. Like
with lay and lie, one word takes a direct object while the other does not. In
this case, “raise” requires an object that is actually being raised, while “rise”
requires just a subject. You raise
your hand in class, but when the bell rings, you rise from your seat and dash to the hallway as soon as possible.
References and other links for more information:
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