To lie

[Tootsurly]

Why exactly do people have such difficulty with the English verb "to lie"?

Just today I have read, "I was led" and "He was lay".

I lie, I lay, I am lying, I was lying, I had been lying, I have lain, I had lain, I would lie, I would have lain.

Not "I am lay" or "I am laid" or "I am led". Oh, and it's a lie-in, not a lay-in.

I am sat / I am stood is bad enough, but "led" isn't even from the right verb!

Anyone else hate this?

Nope

Yes, this really bothers me too, OP.

I shout at the TV when someone makes a mistake with this verb.

In true crime documentaries, I can't bear it when the police officer says "the body was laying on the floor".

A relation corrected me. "Hens lay eggs and we lay the table but apart from that it's lie." I would like to add "except when the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head", but I know that's the past tense and she was correcting me on the present tense.
I lay, you lay, he/she/it lay, we lay, you lay, they lay - ever so regular.

He/she/it lays. But I'm assuming that was a typo. 🙂

There are three verbs with overlapping forms, that's the problem.

I lie in bed (I lay in bed this morning, I have lain in bed, I was lying in bed).

I lay the table (I laid the table this morning, I have laid the table, I was laying the table).

I lie every time I open my mouth (I lied this morning, I have lied, I was lying).

No, little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.

Nothing wrong with "I was led".

That is, in a sentence like "I was led astray".

Well exactly - from the verb "to lead", not the verb "to lie".

"I was led awake," however, is a grammatical solecism (if that's not tautological).

Im dyslexic and know I'm guilty of sooo many mistakes. I read these posts and learn so much.

So I have a question

How do you properly say to sleep in? I don't know the correct way to say I want a lie in/I'm having a lay in/etc so I always say I need to catch up on sleep and get up later or some variation on that. Even reading this post I can't work out the answer is this about the position of laying down or telling fibs?

It frustrates me too.

Sleeping in = having a 'lie in', or a 'lie-in'. Never 'lay in'.

For telling fibs, see my answer above comparing the three verbs.

Incidentally, 'laying down' is uncommon - you would more often use 'lying down' (e.g. on a bed). 'Laying down' is transitive, i.e. it needs an object, for example, 'I am laying down the colours on my painting', where 'the colours' is the object. When you lie on a bed, there is no object. But plenty of plenty mix up the two, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Well, no, it wasn't a typo. I thought I was conjugating a past tense and you are thinking I was conjugating the present tense. I think that's how it was!

However, look further in the posts and you will see that I have been told that the carol has it wrong when it says ' the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head (in the past)' and that it ought to be 'the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head'.

I hope I am using the verb 'to conjugate' correctly. Many years have passed since I learned 'amo, amas, amat....'.

Now I hardly know whether I'm lying or laying or laid or what. !

So it is as inadmissible to say, "She lay down on the chaise longue for her afternoon nap." as it is to say, "We was laying on the grass."

To sleep in = to have a lie in.

If you're talking about sleeping you're lying down, not laying down. If you're tiling a bathroom you could be laying down the tiles I guess. If you're fibbing, you're lying - or you lied if it's in the past.

I'm with you on this one, OP.

The verb 'to lay' is not the same as the verb 'to lie'.

@upinaballoon the carol doesn't have it wrong, the carol is 'laid down his sweet head'.

Now look what I've had to do. I've been grovelling around on the hall floor looking for hymn books and carol books. Right, o.k., Songs of Praise and Carols for Christmas do indeed have 'the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head'. Why do they both then carry on with 'looked down where he lay' and not 'where he laid'?

Haha, dedication! But it's confusing, right?

The 'laid' and 'lay' in the hymn come from two different verbs.

'laid down his sweet head', transitive verb, as in
I lay the table (I laid the table this morning, I have laid the table, I was laying the table)
There is an object, in this case 'his head'. So we have past tense='laid'.

Then we have 'looked down where he lay', intransitive verb, as in
I lie in bed (I lay in bed this morning, I have lain in bed, I was lying in bed)
There is no object. So we have past tense='lay'.

Thank you.

So it is as inadmissible to say, "She lay down on the chaise longue for her afternoon nap." as it is to say, "We was laying on the grass."

No it isn't!

"She lay down on the chaise longue ..." is absolutely fine.

"We was laying on the grass" has two grammatical mistakes. It should be "we were lying on the grass".

Led is just a regional thing. People from different places say things differently. Nowt wrong with that!

"We was laying on the grass" was meant to be a joke, but I'm perfectly happy that you corrected it.

Right, so, "She lay down on the chaise longue" is right because we are using the verb in the intransitive way?

But "the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head" is also right because we are using the verb in the transitive way?

Have I got it?

What if I say, "She laid her body down on the chaise longue." Would that be right?

I'm not sure you can really separate "her" from "her body". In my view you can't really lay your own body down in the same way that you can lay your head down.

You could certainly lay someone else's body down though. For example it would be fine to say "she laid the child's body down on the chaise longue."