It’s one of the biggest grammatical bugaboos of all, the one that bedevils even the most earnest English students: Is it lie or lay? Martha shares a trick for remembering the difference. See below for her clip-and-save chart of these verbs. Print it out and tape it to your computer. Better yet, laminate it and carry it in your wallet at all times. And if you choose to tattoo it onto some handy part of your body, by all means send us a photo so we can post it on the site. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Martha’s Tricks for Lay vs. Lie”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Grace Romm.
Hi, Grace, what are you called?
I’m from Tyler, Texas.
Tyler, Texas. How are things in Tyler?
They’re wonderful today.
Super. Glad to hear it.
Well, what’s on your mind, Grace?
Well, I have a question about the proper usage of the word lay and lie.
And even worse than that is I can never remember what time to use what word.
So do you have any helpful tips?
Oh, Grace, there are millions of people who are standing up and cheering, saying, thank you for asking that question.
I’ve been wondering that too.
Wait, this question’s about lie and lay, as in what, you know, lying down, laying down?
Right, right.
Like, well, if you go to see a counselor or a therapist, and I don’t mean the psychiatric kind, but like a physical therapist, and should they say, please lie down on my table or please lay down on my table?
-huh, -huh.
Well, the answer is please lie down on my table.
And I can tell you an easy way to remember this.
Okay.
For the present tense of lie and lay, I want you to remember it by thinking about the vowel sounds of these words.
Okay.
Lie means to repose or recline.
I lie on the table.
Recline and lie.
I can do that.
Right.
Great.
And then lay.
Think about the fact that lay means to place.
So you place a book on the table.
Okay.
Or you lay a book on the table.
Does that make sense?
Any object, a pen, anything.
Right.
Okay.
Right.
But then yesterday, what did I do?
You’re getting into the past tense now.
And that gets tricky.
You’re right.
That gets tricky because in the past tense, lie is sort of a liar.
The word lie is a liar because the past tense of lie tries to fake you out because it’s lay.
Yesterday, you lay on the table.
Not laid or laying.
I lay.
Correct.
Yesterday, you lay on the table.
Today, you lie on the table.
Okay.
Does that make sense?
It makes sense.
Usually, these things come to me easily.
My mother was an English graduate.
And they sound bad in my ear if it’s not correct.
But it’s still hard to recognize how the past tense especially should sound.
Well, you’re absolutely right.
And you know what we’re going to do, Grace, to help you out and help out the other millions of listeners who have this same question?
We’re just going to make them both the same.
Can we do that?
I don’t know if we have the power to do that.
Who do we call to fix that?
But I tell you what we should do, Grant.
I think that we should put on our website, waywordradio.org, a chart that has those different tenses and uses of lie and lay.
Because sometimes you just have to see it visually.
And I think we could just put a little chart, put little dotted lines around it so, Grace, you could clip it out and tape it to your computer.
Or better yet, laminate it and carry it around in your wallet.
It won’t take long.
And I’ll be able to remember it, I’m sure.
I don’t remember.
Maybe it’s a third grade we studied there.
It probably is in their text right now, but that would be a great idea.
Okay, let’s do that.
A little refresher always helps, right?
Yes, thank you so much.
Martha, you make it.
I’ll post it, all right?
Okay.
Okay, great.
You got it.
All right, thank you for your call.
Thank you, bye-bye.
Okay.
All right, bye-bye.
So the past tense of lie is lay.
Right.
And the past tense of lay is?
Laid.
-huh.
And then lane comes in?
I have Lane on the table for days, and I’m tired of that.
And I have laid books on the table every day this week.
Yeah.
So we’re going to post that chart on our website.
That’s waywordradio.org.
And in the meantime, if you have a question about language, you can call us.
The number is 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
