Booher's Rules of Business Grammar - Dianna Booher 2009

Lie or lay before i knock you off your feet
Verbosity about verbs: The big blunders

THE LIE/LAY LIMBO

The most common error with these two verbs pops up in sentences like these:

Incorrect:

Wilmo is going to lay down for a few minutes to rest.

That paperwork has been laying on my desk for days.

Her photo laid on my kitchen table for weeks before I could bear to put it away.

In these instances, somebody or something is reclining. The verb meaning to recline is to lie. (To lie also means to tell a falsehood, but nobody makes an error with that use.)

Correct:

Wilmo is going to lie down for a few minutes to rest.

That paperwork has been lying on my desk for days.

Her photo lay on my kitchen table for weeks before I could bear to put it away.

To lay means to place something. Once you place something, it then lies or reclines: “I laid the photo on my desk yesterday; it has been lying there ever since.”

These two verbs make you wish for a site map for tracking purposes so that you don’t lose your way through the discussion. In fact, we’re so used to navigating the Internet that the site-map analogy may be the best method to understand these overlapping words in their very different meanings and time frames.

Notice where these maps intersect; that is, notice where the words look alike but have an entirely different meaning.

Site Map for Lie

Site Map for Lay

To sum up, you lay (place) items down. Once placed, items or people lie (recline).

Memory tip

Lie is about the BIG I. To keep from getting lost on the map, distinguish between these two verbs right up front. Lie has I in the center—and that’s usually the case about to lie in all its forms. It’s typically about people. People lie (tell a falsehood) to save their ego, their job, or a relationship. They also lie (recline) to protect themselves—to save their strength or energy. Once you understand the meaning of the BIG I, your sentence can refer to any person (or also an object) that’s doing the lying or reclining.

Placing, on the other hand, has an a in it. Likewise, lay has an a. After you choose the correct word for its meaning in the present tense, put the verb through its paces to get the right tense for the intended time frame.