To lie/to lay

[nonmifairidere]

'Chasing Cars' by Snow Patrol is a lovely song, ruined by the ungrammatical chorus. Surely it should be 'If I just lie here'? To lie is a continuous action. I'm no grammatical whiz, but I rule in pedantry, so I am beatific having just found this little corner of MN. Apologies if this has already been picked over.

Anyone? I hope you are not ignoring me because I am new. Maybe I should go back to bothering the AIBUers, then? Are you all off having your tea? Hello, anyone out there?

We're here! I remember trying to explain this to an EFL student and failing. Someone will be along in a mo...

They are separate. I am lying down is different from 'I laid the baby in the cot'. Possibly different verbs.

So I agree with you, but can't really explain why.

Thank you, Miranda.

This takes me back to foreign language learning - we're talking about transitive and intransitive verbs here.
It's either "to lie (down)" or "to lay something (down)" -
to lie (down) is intransitive because it has no object (i.e. you can just say "I'm lying down" on its own), and to lay (something) down is transitive because it has an object, i.e. the "something" part (you can't just say "I'm laying" - you have to say what you are laying).
You can't "lie" something down in the same way that you can't "lay" yourself down.
They often get confused because the past participles (lain and laid respectively - "I had lain down for a moment" and "I had laid the table") sound similar.

In the song it's right, because it's conditional. They are using "lie" in the conditional.

If I lay here, if I just lay here,
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world?

Substitute "sit" or "stand", and it's still perfectly comfortable.

If I sat here ... would you sit with me and just forget the world?

Sorry Horry is right, having seen the rest of the lyrics above , however the whole lie/lay issue is something that often gets mixed up for the reasons I mentioned too, when not used in the conditional sense.

What Tiny said was completely right. Unfortunately the song, despite being right, confirms some people in their erroneous use of "lay" for "lie".

::weeps::

I was worried for a moment there as it never sounded wrong to me. What a relief to have it explained! Nice one, Horry.